Normally, Modern is not really on my radar – I played it for worlds, and that was it. Luis plays it all the time, though, so while I was staying at his place I became somewhat involved with the format and the deck he was playing – Tron. It is no secret that I’m not generally a fan of Tron strategies, and the main reason is that it’s just inconsistent in all fronts – you have to play more than twelve lands that don’t add any color and that only do something when you have three of them, and you have to play a bunch of cards that are completely unplayable if you don’t have those lands already. The whole combination has always felt like ramp to me – if you draw your acceleration early and the threats later, then you’re golden, but if you draw those in the wrong order, or only draw one of them, then you don’t do anything. For this reason, I was very skeptical when Luis started playing it – I’d watch him durdle around with Emrakuls but never thought much of the deck. At some point he started winning enough that I started paying attention, though, and I was surprised when I realized that I didn’t think the deck was bad at all.

So, why is this Tron deck better than previous Tron decks? In short, Expedition Map (and to a lesser extent Emrakul). This is, in my opinion, the card that makes the deck playable – it’s what this deck has that previous tron decks didn’t. It kind of solves both your problems – finding tron and finding a threat, through Eye of Ugin, and with this in the deck it doesn’t even feel like you’re the luckiest person in the world when you have Tron on turn 3. It’s important to note that, when you only have one tron piece, you generally don’t want to search, because you might get one and then draw that same one – in those situations, the better play is to wait until you draw a second piece and only then search for the third.

The other factor is the metagame. Tron has a bunch of flaws, but at the same time there are decks you just cannot lose to, and that is a very good attribute for a deck to have. This is our latest list:

This is the latest list:

4 Azorius Signet 4 Remand 2 Condescend 4 Path to Exile 1 Day of Judgment 1 Wrath of God 1 Engineered Explosives 2 Timely Reinforcements 4 Thirst for Knowledge 2 Gifts Ungiven 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 1 Wurmcoil Engine 3 Expedition Map 1 Mindslaver 1 Repeal 1 Oblivion Ring 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 4 Celestial Colonnade 1 Plains 1 Island 3 Seachrome Coast 1 Academy Ruins 2 Hallowed Fountain 1 Eye of Ugin 1 Ghost Quarter

Sideboard:
1 Timely Reinforcements (Aggro/jund)
1 Disenchant (Affinity/Pod/Twin/Mirror)
2 Dismember (Affinity/Pod/Twin/Merfolks)
1 Suppression Field (Twin)
2 Rule of Law (Storm)
2 Ghostly Prison (Twin, Storm if they’ve shown that they are into the Empty the Warrens plan)
1 Faith’s Fetters (Red aggro/Jund)
1 Dispel (Blue decks)
1 Karn Liberated (other control decks/mirror. If you’re Luis, everything)
1 Tormod’s Crypt (graveyard/Past in Flames)
1 Grafdigger’s Cage/Nihil Spellbomb (Graveyard/Pod) / (Graveyard/Past in Flames)
1 Engineered Explosives (All aggro)

At first, we had a Baneslayer Angel in the board, but everyone kept a ton of removal in for some reason, so that didn’t work out very well. Another option was Crucible/Tectonic Edge, but I don’t think that’s good enough or needed – you only really want it in the mirror and that can’t really be more than 10% of the field (though the Tectonic Edge is fine against other decks). Torpor Orb was also in the board at some point, but everyone sides in Grudge against you, so you don’t want your hate against decks that have access to it to be an artifact – Canonist is bad for a similar reason.

Mindbreak Trap is another card you could easily play, if Storm and the mirror become big enough – as a Storm stopper, it’s not as good as Rule of Law I don’t think, the the ability to counter Emrakul pushes it over the top if the mirror turns out to be big (right now, I don’t think it’s big enough to warrant that).

Here are some explanations/tips on specific cards:

Gifts Ungiven: There is no real combo with this card here – it’s just for “value”. We tried Buried Ruin/Crucible and that just wasn’t good, since it was way too clunky, and Luis tried the Unburial Rites combo and found it lacking, since the deck has enough dead cards already and you can’t just add two more or you’ll have too many hands with Emrakuls and Unburial Rites in them. If Fact or Fiction was legal, you’d play those instead, but Gifts is just the best draw spell you can play. If you Gifts for Tron, Map, card, card, then you’re either going to get the two cards you want or the full tron + the Map for Eye of Ugin, so that’s one of the most common piles. For creatures you have Wraths, EE, Path and Timely, and if you have a ton of mana then you can just get more Thirsts or Gifts, or some of the big guys/Map. Remember that if you get Emrakul or Ulamog they can just put it in the graveyard and have you shuffle, so be careful with piles that include Eldrazi and Academy Ruins.

With Gifts, it’s important to remember that you know what you already have, but they don’t. If you already have the missing Tron piece, then you can get it anyway and they will most likely not give it to you, because they don’t know that you already have it and it’s too good a card for them to risk giving you. If they play something that you have to counter and you already have a Remand, then respond with Gifts and get a Remand anyway. If you need to Path a dude, play Gifts before you Path and get a Path – in those scenarios, Gifting first really pays off.

The creatures: Emrakul is awesome, and again a reason why the deck is good when it wasn’t before. This card gives you inevitability, and it’s the reason you crush the decks you crush – Mono White Lifegain and whatnot just can’t beat it, and you have five copies among Eye and Map. Ulamog is not as good, but he is better than Kozilek – when you get to the late game, you don’t want to draw four cards that you won’t be able to cast that turn, you want to nuke a permanent and be done with it, you can’t afford to tap 10 mana for a card that has no immediate impact on the board. Wurmcoil Engine is just a nice card – you actually tutor for it less than the other two, but it does happen, and it’s fine as a 6 mana spell against aggro decks, especially the ones without Path (Jund, mainly). If you’re blessed, you can play him on turn three and that’s even good against the storm decks.

The anti creature spells: Those are pretty self-explanatory – Wrath of God is better than Day of Judgment but you want to be able to Gifts for both. We had Dismembers for a while instead of Timely Reinforcements, but Timely is better against most aggro decks those days (though Dismember is better against Affinity and Merfolk). Some people play Martial Coup and All is Dust, and while being able to Gifts for 3 Wraths is nice sometimes, I’d generally rather have the spot removal, since it’s much much better to draw. Those two are only good if you have tron, otherwise they’re generally too late to the party, and if you have tron and Gifts then you should be able to come up with something that doesn’t require them. If you want them, I don’t think that’s terrible, but I would never play both – I’d likely play only the Martial Coup.

The Counterspells: The deck started with four Condescend and four Remand, but that proved to be excessive. They’re here for two reasons – to buy time and to try to stop combo. You don’t have to be conservative with them most of the time – when in doubt, just Remand or Condescend anything that moves and you’ll be fine, unless you’re playing against a combo deck in which case those are your best spells and you should save them all for the critical turn (though keep in mind that there aren’t thaaat many colored sources, so it’s not unheard of that you can only cast one or two counterspells in a turn).

Mindslaver: This is again more of a “value” card than a combo piece – you very, very rarely kill them with Mindslaver lock, but it’s very important against the storm and combo decks. One sweet aspect of Mindslaver is that it will make people sideboard in Graveyard removal against you, and it’s reeeeeally bad, since Ruins is the only card it stops.

Celestial Colonnade: Colonnade is insane, and you should never play less than four. Coming into play untapped is annoying, but it’s very worth it, since it’s a good blocker, a good finisher and your best way of dealing with Planeswalkers. PLAY FOUR!

When you play this deck, you just want to buy time. You have greater inevitability than anyone else, and if people give you time, you will kill them and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, so use all your resources to make sure you have that time. That said, you do play a bit differently in each matchup, so I’ll describe the most popular ones. Another interesting aspect is that, with this deck, you have to go a bit more lightly on mulliganing than you normally would (or, rather, I do – you probably just have to mulligan as much as you do now and then you’ll be fine). Any hand with tron, or two pieces and map, for example, is likely a keep, even if you think it’s underwhelming in every other aspect, because you can just draw your way out of it. Sometimes you’ll keep tron and no colored source and die on turn 5 without having played a spell, but that is a risk I think you have to take if you’re willing to play this deck.

Jund

Jund is one of the most popular decks online, and it’s not a particularly hard matchup. The most problematic card they have is Liliana, for which you have counters (kinda), Oblivion Ring, Repeal and Celestial Colonnade, as well as sideboarded Fetters. Wurmcoil Engine is your single best card here, but Ulamog is also good since their only out is actually Liliana. The late game should favor you (like any late game), so the way you die, if not to Liliana, is generally a quick assault, which is why Timely Reinforcements is good against them. If they play Dark Confidant on turn two, you just want to Path it – it’s better to give them a land than to give them an extra card every turn (while you’re taking two!), and you’ll probably end up Pathing that sooner or later.

Delver decks in general

Those are also easy matches – they can’t kill you quickly enough, and then at some point you get Tron online and most of their counters become useless, since they’re Mana Leaks/Spell Pierces. You shouldn’t be afraid to tap out for your draw spells on your own turn if they are tapped out, since they can’t really punish you for it and all their threats are very cheap, so keeping Remand or Condescend up is not the winning proposition, you should just develop your own game.

White aggro decks: (tokens, lifegain, whatever)

Your best matchup, most likely – again they aren’t fast enough to kill you before you do your thing, and they have absolutely no way to disrupt you. You can take damage early on and develop your game, and at some point you just Wrath or Emrakul them, or both, and then you win.

Bant decks:

Another good match. It’s basically the same thing – they can’t kill you fast enough or disrupt you enough, blah blah. Way harder than a white based aggro deck, but still a good match.

Zoo/Boros:

Those matches can go either way, and it’s really going to depend on which half of your deck you draw – if you draw a ton of the anti creature stuff you’ll win, if you draw a ton of the anti-spells cards you’ll lose. Boros is easier than Zoo (and I honestly cannot comprehend why anyone would play Boros other than the cost, but if a ton of people can afford Jund they can certainly afford Zoo as well), since their creatures are smaller and you can block with Timely tokens more profitably, whereas against Zoo you just chump block most of the time. There isn’t much more that can be done about it, since there is plenty of removal and Timely already, but all in all a match I would not hate to play.

Storm:

Your actual worst matchup. There are only two ways you win this match pre board – you get a very quick Mindslaver, or they mess up. They could also get incredibly unlucky, but with all the time you give them that’s almost impossible. The way they mess up is generally by trying to go off in a way that Remand or Condescend stops them, such as turn three – there is absolute no reason they should do that, but they still do, and then you’ll win half those games. If they wait, like any reasonable person should, and try to combo off with 10 mana, then you’ll very likely lose.

Post board is another matter – you now have a card that says “I win as long as this is in play”, and they have to factor that in their considerations. That might cause them to try to go off earlier than they should, because you can just Rule of Law them if they don’t, so you’ll win some of those games off of that too. Still not favorable, but way better than pre-board.

Splinter Twin:

This is also a bad match, but not nearly as bad as storm. They’re not as vulnerable to counterspells (if they try to go off and you Remand it, they just do it again next turn, since they don’t have to use all the cards in their hand to do it), but they’re vulnerable to Path, which is actually cheaper than your counters, and you have four of those. With Ghostly Prison, Suppression Field, Disenchant, Dispels and Dismembers in the board, you actually have a real shot against this combo deck.

Dark Ascension

Dark Ascension is already out, and though I have not tried it in modern yet, we can speculate some as to what is going to happen. There is a chance the graveyard strategies become better, so I have a Crypt and a Spellbomb/Cage there, so that you can Gifts for that + Map or Academy Ruins. If those decks prove to be bad, then you can easily remove those. Grafdigger’s Cage seems better than Nihil Spellbomb against actual graveyard strategies and it is also incredible against Birthing Pod, but Spellbomb is better against Past in Flames – right now, I’d lean more towards Cage but that could easily change. Other than that, I can’t imagine that there is much that affects you – you certainly don’t want to play anything else in that deck. The new Rule of Law curse could be decent, since it has a different name, but 2WW is really a lot more than 2W when they can kill you on turns three and four, so you don’t really want that.

Well, that’s about it. Do I think Tron is broken, the best deck in the format by far? No, not really. But it definitely is a real deck, which I didn’t think it was before I came to California – I certainly underestimated it based on previous experiences, but this Tron deck is not at all like previous Tron decks, and you should definitely give it a shot/include it in your gauntlet, because it’s certainly powerful. If a ton of people play the horrible white decks, or the non-combo blue decks, or Jund, then Tron is an excellent option; if a lot of people play Storm/Twin, then Tron is not a good choice, unless those people are very bad.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, see you next week!

PV

The single most important facet of difference between eternal and rotating formats – in fact, the thing that actually defines them – is that rotation doesn’t happen for Vintage, Legacy, and Modern. Once a card exists, it exists forever (barring banning the card). Once a mechanic exists, you’ll need to consider that mechanic for the rest of the game’s life. This is a double edged sword, because sometimes a really cool mechanic or card will turn up, and you’ll get to keep playing it even after it rotates out of Standard (see: cycling); on the other hand, you’ll need to keep playing against the really stupid mistakes over and over, as well (see: affinity, dredge).

From the day they printed Alpha, the minds behind Magic considered the graveyard not as a discard pile – where other games place the cards that are no longer relevant – but as an additional store of resources that could potentially be utilized at a later time. Raise Dead, Animate Dead, Nether Shadow, Regrowth, Resurrection, these spells rewarded you for remembering that despite the fact that a spell was used or a creature died, it is by no means out of the game forever. As more and more sets were released, and more and more mechanics became available, the graveyard was expanded as a potential source of advantage for value-obsessed players.

Impressions-

Today, we have a multitude of options to gain that value from our graveyard. While some decks are more focused on it than others, there are few that are completely devoid of some kind of recursive effect, because it’s basically free.

This is the type of thing we’re seeing as either dedicated or incidental reliance on our graveyard. It covers a ridiculous span of decks, from the combo deck that actively looks to fill the yard with fuel, to the aggro deck that doesn’t particularly care what goes the yard, as long as something does, to the control deck trying to turn one card into two whenever possible. Each of these decks has an impact on the way the format shapes itself, and it’s difficult to ignore the fact that more and more, especially in light of powerful graveyard-matters planes like Innistrad, we approach a critical mass of graveyard effects that force us to interact on multiple fronts.

The reason Dredge is scary isn’t because it’s a turn 2 combo deck. The reason its scary is because we’ve convinced ourselves that it isn’t a factor, and are underprepared to face the deck in a tournament situation – relying on a few sideboard slots to try and steal a match, or recognizing ourselves as unprepared and hoping to dodge the matchup.

The greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Well, the devil exists, and he’s the upper tier of Legacy.

If you consider the top tier (as it exists today, prior to the influence of Dark Ascension) to be:

RUG Delver
UW Stoneforge
GW Maverick
Storm
Reanimator
Dredge

With nearly an infinite number of other decks making up the second tier, then you’ll find that five of the six decks have a moderate to major attachment to the contents of their graveyard, and the last has the potential to use theirs from the sideboard.

RUG uses Tarmogoyf and Snapcaster Mage as its largest threat and major source of card advantage, respectively. It has Grim Lavamancer as additional removal. It’s also begun to include Nimble Mongoose as another three-power one drop, which is very much reliant on threshold to be a “real” card.

Maverick runs Tarmogoyf (though in smaller and smaller numbers), Knight of the Reliquary, and Punishing Fire in its maindeck. It also often sideboards into Life From the Loam to protect its Groves.

Storm has begun to lean more and more on Past in Flames, some builds going so far as to run Cabal Ritual in order to capitalize on the larger number of cards in their graveyard. Those that choose to eschew red are running Ill-Gotten Gains once again, to loop their graveyard and increase their storm.

Reanimator is completely reliant on its yard game one, with the ability to transform into a Show and Tell deck games two and three. Life is still much easier for them if they get to use their yard.

Dredge is graveyard deck #1, and completely reliant upon it to function.

Of the decks, only UW Stoneforge is devoid of graveyard, and only those builds that are not running Crucible or Snapcaster Mage – which are fewer and fewer of late.

The entire upper tier has recognized that the graveyard can act as a second hand of cards, and if you can utilize it as a resource, there is much value to be added to your arsenal of options.

So, graveyard interaction is becoming more and more necessary as these decks lean more and more on that resource.

Statistics-

Looking at the last three top 8’s from SCG Opens – all the results of the current season – we can see the following:

Yard Reliance –
Maindecks included:
22 Snapcaster Mage
9 Nimble Mongoose
23 Tarmogoyf
6 Grim Lavamancer
24 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Eternal Witness
12 Punishing Fire
3 Jötun Grunt
4 Hellspark Elemental
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Nether Spirit
7 Entomb
8 Life From the Loam
4 Raven’s Crime
1 Worm Harvest
3 Cabal Pit
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Rite of Flame
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 (Entire Dredge Deck)
3 (Entire Reanimator Deck)

Nearly every deck, with the exception of the singleton Goblins deck, had some form of interaction with their graveyard. While in some decks you’re better off ignoring this interaction (you don’t want to board Tormod’s Crypt against Burn just to stop the return of Hellspark Elemental), others were more intimately involved in the shenanigans the graveyard allows.

Sideboards included:
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Life From the Loam
2 Spinning Darkness
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Tombstalker
2 Darkblast

In most of these cases, the sideboard gives access to additional card advantage where a deck like UW control will try to grind them out. Crucible, Loam, Darkblast, etc allow for additional resources in the matchups that usually come down to attrition.

Yard Hate -
Maindecks included:
8 Scavenging Ooze
1 Bojuka Bog

This means that out of the 24 decks in top 8’s, an average one out of three were running some form of maindeck graveyard hate – and all that did could tutor for that hate.

Sideboards included:
11 Leyline of the Void (4 in decks that could not cast them)
8 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
16 Surgical Extraction
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
5 Bojuka Bog
7 Faerie Macabre
1 Coffin Purge
3 Extirpate

The majority of these cards were either three-ofs or better, or were featured as silver bullets in Enlightened Tutor or Knight of the Reliquary packages.

Of the entirety of the 24 decks, only five did not have some form of graveyard interaction – Goblins had no hate, 2 Reanimator decks came with no hate, Dredge came with no hate, and Storm had no hate. While Goblins could arguably run some amount of hate, it has reasonable matchups against the yard decks, as it can put up blockers against Dredge and has Stingscourger/Warren Weirding against Reanimator. The Storm deck looks to be uninteractive with the yard decks, although the one in question did adapt Bryant Cook’s tech of adding Silent Departure as a solution to Iona from the Reanimator decks. The rest are the yard decks themselves, and while it’s possible that they’d face the graveyard mirror, the space is better served as answers for the hate rather than watering down their own game plan for the mirror.

To get back to the point I made to open, I can’t imagine a reason I’d want to actively attempt to utilize my graveyard in a format where one out of three decks have a tutorable answer to my strategy in their maindeck, and four out of five have 2-5 additional cards in the sideboard. That kind of risk simply isn’t worth the reward. You are not such a heavy favorite in game one that it’s worth the chance of being blown out over and over on the odds that you don’t face a deck with reliable answers.

In short, we’ve arrived at a point where the graveyard is a battle we’re all willing to fight.

A few months ago, I mentioned that we’re on the verge of being a format where it was legitimate to auto-include 4x Leyline of the Void in your sideboard. I think we’re at that point, except Leyline often isn’t the optimal way to battle these strategies, because you can actively fight graveyards without it, where in a faster format like Vintage, you don’t always have the time to do so. Here, it’s not so important that the game start with a Leyline as it is that you’re capable of finding the answer you’re including at the time when it becomes necessary to have it. We’re seeing an increasing number of Scavenging Oozes in the maindecks of decks that can Green Sun’s Zenith for it, to the point where slots are being taken from Tarmogoyf to make room. Because of the increasing reliance on the yard for many decks, the Ooze has an upside the Goyf lacks. It’s not so important that we have a 2 mana 5/6 – what’s important is that we have a way to stall the deck we’re opposing, cutting them off avenues until the Ooze becomes a 4/4 or better on its own. We’re seeing more Bojuka Bogs than before, largely because Knight of the Reliquary is the format’s premiere three-drop threat, and has the ability to find it at instant speed – when it has the most impact. The most telling thing, to me, is the insane reduction in the number of Relic of Progenitus seeing play – specifically because it requires the person playing it to be non-reliant on the yard as well, due to the symmetrical effect it has when exiled. Even when you don’t get the cantrip out of it, Tormod’s Crypt is being used in its place once again because the effect only inhibits the opponent.

This trend is incredibly important when you consider the direction the format is taking. Because of the open nature of Legacy, it’s sometimes difficult to recognize what you’re going to need to prepare for when crafting the entire 75 you’ll be taking to an event. With as broad a range of strategies as the format contains, it’s nearly impossible to have a plan for everything. What’s great against one deck may not be usable at all against another. Each slot in your sideboard is precious, and you should have a reason to play each and every card in it. Where in previous metagames, you may have been able to skimp on the graveyard interactions and hope to dodge the decks that would punish you for doing so, you’ll now need to be more aware of the risks you run by doing so, and probably reconsider.

What does all this mean?

As outlined above, Legacy has begun to show trends of a baseline reliance on the graveyard. It’s not to say that every deck cares about what’s going on in its yard, but it’s getting close. The ones that aren’t using their graveyard are certainly assuming the opponent will be, and in doing so are prepared for them. So what does a discerning player do?

We use that to our advantage, by utilizing a strategy that ignores the fact that it has a graveyard, or minimizes the amount it uses its own, and finds other means of gaining advantage.

A few weeks ago, I had begun to get a particular itch in my fingers. This is something that happens from time to time, and it usually signals that I’m feeling the urge to play a specific subset of cards that I don’t often play, but will bust out when the time is right. Often this itch is a way my subconscious reminds me that they’re currently good in the metagame, despite my active mind not really considering them.

Oddly enough, it appeared that Drew Levin got the same itch, because he wrote an article discussing two of the cards, which was posted literally the morning after I built the deck myself.

The card that makes me more itchy than any other is Pernicious Deed. Maybe it’s because of the testing that Caleb and I were doing with his Deed deck, or maybe I just realized that the whole format scoops to a well-timed Deed activation. Maybe it’s because I realized how similar the current format is to the one that was present in 2006. Maybe it’s because I remembered that aggro control can’t really afford to play around infinite sweepers. Maybe it’s because they’re all shiny and old-card-faced. Whatever the reason, I knew it was time to pick up the Deeds again.

I started with a list based on Luis and Paulo’s Landstill build from Providence. Obviously the deck and field are much changed because of the lack of Mental Missteps in the format, but there are a lot of principles that are the same. You don’t want to run creatures, because you want to run things like Innocent Blood – and you want to create Virtual Card Advantage when facing decks that are trying to off a bunch of 2 mana threats. You don’t want to run Standstill at this juncture, because without Mental Misstep you’re less able to shut down the first threat of the game, and you’ll be forced to work from under a Standstill when you’re less equipped to do so than most of the aggro decks in the format right now. We’re not back to the point where 4x Jace is correct in a control deck yet, but he’s still an easy 3. While some decks are capable of killing you before turn 5, the ones that are actively trying to do so are vulnerable to spot removal, sweepers, or a couple well-timed counterspells. Ancestral Vision is once again a viable source of card advantage.

This all paired with a fascination for trying to jam Liliana of the Veil and Jace in the same deck, and came out something like so:

4 Force of Will 4 Brainstorm 4 Ancestral Vision 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Pernicious Deed 3 Spell Snare 3 Thoughtseize 2 Counterspell 2 Liliana of the Veil 2 Life From the Loam 1 Dismember 1 Ghastly Demise 1 Go for the Throat 1 Smother 1 Innocent Blood 1 Diabolic Edict 3 Underground Sea 3 Tropical Island 1 Bayou 4 Mishra's Factory 4 Wasteland 4 Polluted Delta 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Verdant Catacombs 1 Island

The first pass at the manabase resulted in a recognition that 8 colorless lands is too mana, 1 basic land is too few, and was modified as so:

-2 Mishra’s Factory
-1 Wasteland
+1 Island
+1 Swamp
+1 Creeping Tar Pit

When I don’t want to reduce the “threat” base of the Factories down to 2, having a third manland that doesn’t cost you a blue or black source is ideal, and the fact that Tar Pit enters the battlefield tapped can be worked around in most situations.

The sideboard I’ve chosen for our specific metagame is as follows:

4 Leyline of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Darkblast
1 Black Sun’s Zenith
1 Damnation
1 Phyrexian Metamorph

This list has a few things going for it that I believe makes it a real factor in the current metagame. Deed is well-positioned as a go-to answer for all the threats the format is presenting. In a world where sweepers are at a low, having the one that deals with all the guys, all the equipment, and all the random chaff you run into is a boon. Clearing the board at the end of your opponent’s turn, and untapping into a Jace is as big a game as it’s ever been. Alongside those Deeds, you have a slew of spot removal – all of which kill a Delver or Goyf alike, and most of which are able to pick off a Knight of the Reliquary as well. The difficulty comes when a card like Diabolic Edict can’t deal with a team of dorks – and that’s where the Deeds come in. Meanwhile, you’re limiting the opponent’s major plays through leveraging a stream of Thoughtseizes and Liliana activations, which you’re happy to pitch a few cards to here and there. When your fifth turn rolls around, refill with Ancestral Vision, and ride the card advantage wave home – killing with Jace or manlands at your leisure.

You don’t run graveyard “stuff,” aside from a pair of Loams, which are not important to your game plan, and are often sided out. You don’t actually need Darkblast, and one use is often enough.

You don’t run creatures, so your opponent’s removal will be dead to near-dead. Killing with Factories or Tar Pit is sometimes faster than Jace, but not entirely required. If they decide to use Pithing Needle as a way to handle Jace, Deed exists, as does the ultimate of Liliana.

You get the best possible choice for grave hate from the board, and can fine tune your removal to be most applicable for all the kinds of threats your opponents will present. In addition, you can overload on removal and feel free to one-for-one them until they die.

Your manabase is fairly resilient for a deck running three colors and a few colorless lands, so don’t be scared of Wasteland. Often you’ll be more likely to Waste-lock an opponent than they will to you.

Loam + Liliana are a saucy mix.

Pernicious Deed doesn’t actually kill anything of yours, unless you walk yourself into it.

One of the major issues I’ve had with this deck in the time I’ve been playing it is the tendency to get low on life while stabilizing, and then being on the back foot when you draw a couple duds off the top in a row. While I’m not positive that you’re looking for something silly like Nourish to offset this, some kind of incidental life gain would probably be a benefit for this type of deck. It’s also by nature going to have difficulties with decks like Burn and even the UR delver/burn decks, so it’s worth considering these matchups when constructing a board for your own metagames.

BUG control, at least on the surface, seems to have a niche to fill in the current metagame, as there aren’t really any other true control decks to speak of. With writers like Drew and I thinking about its role, and players like Nick Spagnolo and Eric Gosse piloting “junk rare brews” to the top of the SCG standings, there has to be something here – or maybe we all just like ourselves a Pernicious Deed.

Either way, we’ll soon find out, as we’re going to begin running this deck through our Legacy gauntlet as soon as we get a few minor kinks worked out technically, so look for those coming up!

Adam
@AdamNightmare

At that time, my fellow Japanese players and I aspired to attain the same level as the American pros, but there is a generational disconnect between American players from that era and those from the current one. That is to say, I recognize that there is a clear divergence between present day America and “America back then”.

Seven years ago at the World Championships, Kenji Tsumura emerged victorious from his epic battle with Olivier Ruel for the Player of the Year title. Masashi Oiso, Ichiro Shimura, and Takuma Morofuji, one of the most talented Japanese National Teams of all time, won their portion. And, Katsuhiro Mori, playing in his first Pro Tour Top 8, won the World Championships itself. Most importantly, these players no longer led an anonymous existence.

The circumstances surrounding the 2011 World Championships are similar to those of seven years ago. The National Team had the steadfast veteran and former World Champion Makihito Mihara, but the other two members were two young, largely anonymous players. And, there was a new Japanese World Champion.

However, I can’t help but feel that this recent display of power heralds the end of an era. It’s like the moment just before sunset when the sun’s last rays are sinking and the intensity of the light itself is low, but it is impossible to look directly at it for fear of being blinded.

I’ve been thinking about the number of active players remaining in the Japanese community, the number of active professional players in that same group, and the idea that the practice of exchanging information and ideas among generations has become extinct.

It looks like Jun’ya Iyanaga is also feeling this way.

On our last night in San Francisco I was eating with Iyanaga and the National Team as a victory celebration. After we exchanged congratulations, we discussed whether perhaps we might be the last Japanese professional players and what we would do after we were no longer in an environment surrounded by other players like ourselves.

Today’s article will be about the World Champion, Jun’ya Iyanaga. I think I will talk about the environment he comes from and some specific episodes from his experience. Seven years ago, in a period I refer to as the “Third Generation”, there was still information exchange both between individual players and in the community as a whole. At that time, Iyanaga was one of a group of young players from Tokyo that was moving up in the world of Magic: The Gathering.

Originally my sense of the label “Third Generation” was that it was a general descriptor of the young players of the day, but it came to refer more precisely to a group made up mostly of senior high school students who regularly organized large tournaments throughout Tokyo averaging around one hundred participants. Afterwards little by little their range expanded and events of a similar scale were held in different Tokyo locations, thereby adding to their regular customer base. The group now included players as old as university students (indeed, as Iyanaga grew older he attended university). So, the meaning of the term “Third Generation” expanded to refer to these individuals as well.

This group truly yielded many star players. For example Yuuya Watanabe, Pro Tour Top 8 player Takahiro Suzuki, Kentarou Yamamoto, Yuuta Takahashi, Takayuki Koike, Yoshihiko Ikawa and Shintaro Ishimura all share this common point of origin.

Back then, it seemed the “Third Generation” felt their task was to reach the level of the slightly older “Second Generation”. There were several main communities centered around areas and stores in the Tokyo region. For example Akira Asahara was the leader of western Tokyo’s Hachiouji group and Tomohiro Kaji organized the Saitama group. Tomoharu Saito and Shingo Kurihara came from Ikebukuro, and Kazuya Mitamura distinguished himself in the Chiba region.

By this definition, I was from the “Second Generation”. Because most players were classified as “Second Generation” unless they were active from the very beginning like Tsuyoshi Fujita and Itaru Ishida, I think that perhaps the term “Third Generation” also included the sense of “the younger generation” for me. However, in this case it seems that the term “younger” also refers to my interactions with the players in the community.

For example Shouta Yasooka frequently got together to draft with the “Third Generation” players, but there was too large of a gap in skill level, and because he got a good rare every time they called him the “Rancher”. They felt as though he was the farmer and they were mere sheep.

Although Iyanaga had never made Day 2 of a Pro Tour at the time, he was known for winning Grand Prix Kitakyuushuu in 2007 and for coming in 2nd in the Japanese National Championships in 2005.

I estimated that he was the only player remaining among Japanese pros who, despite his ability, had never made a Pro Tour Top 8. (In truth, I would also like to cite Masahiko Morita, but it is difficult to say because he has distanced himself from the Pro Tour to some extent).

Iyanaga made his first appearance on the tournament scene at the truly strange 2005 Japanese National Championships. He piloted the current Mono-Red Beatdown deck: turn one Mountain, Chrome Mox, and Slith Firewalker. He made it to the final table and came within a half step of winning the title. Iyanaga was ahead going into the fourth game against his opponent Morofuji, who was playing Tooth and Nail Tron. Iyanaga led with Slith Firewalker, and used Seething Song to equip Sword of Fire and Ice. Morofuji had somehow assembled the Urza lands, hoping to use Triskelion to cope with the threat. However, Iyanaga finally managed to reduce Morofuji’s life total to zero.

“This year’s Japanese National Champion is Jun’ya Iyanaga!”

But Iyanaga’s glory lasted only ten minutes.

This was because of a specific point in the fourth game.

Morofuji had been under serious pressure to defend himself, and when he tapped out to activate Mindslaver Iyanaga had Blinkmoth Nexus and a Frostling equipped with Sword of Fire and Ice on the battlefield. Morofuji had no creatures.

Upon confirming the rule with the head judge, Iyanaga sacrificed Frostling to itself at Morofuji’s end step. But of course the play was illegal. It’s a little odd, but Frostling could not target itself for destruction because Sword of Fire and Ice granted it protection from red. However, at the time the head judge’s answer was “Yes, you can do that.” In other words, Iyanaga made the best play based on the judge’s response.

I think that all of the parties involved did what they thought was best at the time, and though this compensates somewhat, the injury caused by the event took a long time to heal. It is all in the past now and we have reached the point where it can be talked about.

Much later on, the head judge that administered the ruling that day was doing Japanese coverage for the World Championships and watching Iyanaga’s match. As an onlooker who knew of the circumstances, I thought it was a very emotional scene, but assessing the state of things dispassionately is an entirely different question.

In this unfortunate case, an individual not in the game itself used the power they had been given to affect it negatively. This falls under the worst category of outside elements that can distort Magic play. I think that we must not let this memory fade lest it happen again.

But the story doesn’t end there, and that’s the major reason why I have been describing it as “the worst”. Iyanaga had already been hurt by what had happened in the finals, and because it had also been recorded on video there was the possibility the story would resurface. As a result, it was decided that the tape ought to be rewound to the scene in question to fix the problem. It seemed it would not be necessary to write about it in detail afterwards. Iyanaga’s National Champion title ended up being only an illusion.

As for what kind of effect this decision had on Iyanaga, I do not really know since he and I were not acquainted at the time. However, following this Top 8 he declined to take a spot on the national team and turned down the opportunity to play at the World Championships because his college exams were swiftly approaching. The result was that he simultaneously began to distance himself from Magic as a whole.

I finally got to talk to Iyanaga when we faced off at the Japanese National Championships in 2007 during Time Spiral block. It seemed then like he was just returning to competitive Magic after his absence, but he still won Grand Prix Kitakyuushuu only half a year later. Thereafter he has consistently maintained his position on the gravy train.

Iyanaga is usually quiet, but when he is interested in something he is quickly spurred to action. If he doesn’t like something he won’t do it, and though his way of thinking is highly rational he is also very thoughtful about duty and courtesy. Because he felt he had been brought up there, he presented the Grand Prix Kitakyuushuu trophy as a gift to the players who organized the Tokyo tournaments he had regularly attended. That reminds me that at the World Championships he wore a shirt with the name of Tomoharu Saito’s business on it: “Hareruya”.

You might think that there is nothing of interest that can be written about Iyanaga. On the contrary, I could probably say this about his character: “Although he is a little unusual, he is a good guy”.

Like me, Iyanaga is the type who enjoy traveling – something that is thought to be rare among the Japanese. I have often encountered him traveling alone to Asian Grands Prix. We both have a fondness for Roman history, so we spent extra time in Rome after the 2009 World Championships and wandered through the historic ruins together. It was then that I realized we were becoming friends. However, until that event it seemed like he was ending his professional Magic career.

At that time Iyanaga was once again distancing himself from Magic because he was looking for a job. In truth, because his university graduation was swiftly approaching in 2010 he barely made an appearance on the professional stage during that period.

When I heard Iyanaga would be playing in the 2011 Japanese National Championships, I was rather surprised. But I think the World Championships were even more surprising. Iyanaga was qualified for Worlds from the start, but he wasn’t going to attend. The turning point was when he won the last Magic Online World Championships qualifier.

“When you calculate the expected value of this event versus the hourly wages of any part-time job, the tournament is more efficient.” I heard Iyanaga say this sentence first hand.

This was because there was a large amount of prize money guaranteed to those who had qualified for the event since these players could only participate in the Magic Online World Championships by physically going to the World Championships in San Francisco.

I thought this utterance was just like Iyanaga. If it had been said by anyone else I would have judged it to be a joke, but I’m confident Iyanaga seriously felt this way and that it was really the reason he went.

Of course, in order to pass through the preliminary contest for qualification he became quite the Magic recluse. But at the same time, the things he said about himself were always honest in that regard. He never actually announced that he would be distancing himself from professional Magic while looking for a job. He simply made that a reality.

It seems that Iyanaga’s strength as a Magic player follows from this trait. He is the type that carefully breaks down elements one by one. He doesn’t hesitate or second guess himself when making decisions.

It’s easy to simply say that he’s decisive and a strong analytical thinker, but I believe that both Paulo and Iyanaga really excel in this field. However, the number of individuals like them who can put this ideal into practice perfectly is truly limited to a few.

For example, you could tap out completely for a Fireball that would kill your opponent. However, you consider that your opponent may already have Mana Leak in hand and refrain from casting the Fireball. You exclude whether they actually have a Mana Leak or not from this decision, and choose to let the turns pass until you reach the point where you can tap for Fireball and still have three extra mana. But while you don’t draw the essential third land, your opponent is gradually building up an advantage on the battlefield. Their clock is steadily becoming something you can’t deal with, and if your opponent attacks again on the following turn you will lose. You’ve been driven into a corner. Would you wait that long to strike? I think most players would not give up on a lethal Fireball, and would risk the possibility of Mana Leak in the hope of winning.

But I think those two would abandon the idea of striking with a lethal Fireball, and would instead begin to study the battlefield and hamper their opponent’s clock.

But perhaps when they hear my assessment, they’ll say “I wouldn’t do that!” and become upset.

And one more thing: I feel that Iyanaga’s strength as a Magic player shows in his ability to stay calm and his extreme cool-headedness at certain times. To put it briefly, he is very skilled. He didn’t play in 2010, and he himself stated the reason why he didn’t participate in many premier events. He said that there was no point without winning a Pro Tour given the time it takes to practice only to not succeed. So he judged that there was no value in playing.

This doesn’t involve Magic, but it is demonstrative of his character. Sometimes this very blunt manner of speaking has caused misunderstandings when overheard, but he doesn’t overstate his very fair and precise opinions.

As evidence of this Iyanaga has at times evaluated himself in the very same way, viewing himself completely objectively. At our victory celebration he said:

“Once I was an average player among the Third Generation, and there were many players ahead of me. It wasn’t that I won on my own merits; rather, the deck [that he had built with Ishimura] was strong. Perhaps I am the weakest World Champion.”

It seems he expressed his true feelings then. But if you ask me the prize he received, which he said was over four times the expected value of his earnings, came without a doubt from Iyanaga’s own strength.

The sweeping changes from the introduction of Planeswalker Points marked a turning point separating what came before and what would follow and giving birth to a new era. In the midst of this, I think Iyanaga’s win is an appropriate conclusion for that era in Japanese Magic history.

Additionally, there are some who feel this way already, but I also want to go out on a limb and say the following.

Going to the next Invitational is not your privilege, it’s your duty.

Now that the World Championships are over, Iyanaga is once again going to fade from the tournament Magic scene, and it seems in accordance with that he will announce he is not attending the Invitational.

However, for the World Champion it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about making an appearance on behalf of Magic: The Gathering. That is the only merit of the title.

As for the decline in the value of the Player of the Year title, there is no longer any prize money or other bonus to aim for. However, I think that more than anything this is because the Player of the Year has the opportunity to attend the Invitational. I believe that they, like the World Champion, have a duty to participate, and I would like to see this happen.

Most of all, I would like to see Iyanaga play in the Invitational. There is no reason that I should be the only one who feels this way.

Lastly, although this may have become a redundant addition to my articles, thank you for reading.

Shuhei Nakamura

あの頃、僕達日本人プレイヤーにとってアメリカのプロは憧れの存在だったのだけど、
当時のアメリカのプロと現在のアメリカのプロとは世代的に連結していない、
つまり現在とは明確に分かれた過去として切り取られた一部分『あの時代のアメリカ』であるという認識が僕にはある。

７年前の世界選手権、
津村健二はオリヴィエ・ルエルとの壮絶な戦いの末、プレイヤーオブザイヤーを獲得し、大磯、志村、諸藤という歴代でも屈指のタレントを擁した日本チームは勝利を収め、
森勝洋は自身、初めてとなるプロツアートップ８を優勝で決めた。
何よりも彼らは当時の認識でいうと世界的には無名よりの存在だった。

２０１１年の世界選手権はたしかにその７年前に状況は近い、
かつての世界選手権王者、三原という不動の主軸はあれど世界的には若く無名の２人の日本代表チームに新たな日本人の世界チャンピオン。

だけど今の日本勢は１つ時代の終わり、
日没前の最後の輝き、太陽が沈むその直前の光量自体はとても少ないけど直視できないくらい眩しくなる一瞬。
僕にはそう思えてならない。

それは残っているアクティブなコミュニティの数に、
残っているアクティブなプロプレイヤーに、
そして世代間での交流が断絶してしまった事に
どうしても感じてしまうんだ。

彼もまたそう感じているみたいだ。
サンフランシスコの最後の夜に彼と日本チームの祝勝会で卓を囲んだ時
、
おめでとうの次に話したのはおそらく自分たちが最後になるであろう、
これからの日本人プロを取り巻く環境とその後についてだ。
僕の今回の記事のテーマは世界チャンピオン、彌永淳也についてだ。
彼と彼を取り巻いていた環境、そしてエピソードについて語っていきたいと思う。

彌永はまだコミュニティ間、プレイヤー間での交流が残っていた頃、
７年前の僕が『第３世代』と呼んだ、
当時興隆しつつあった東京の若手グループの一人だ。

もともと『第３世代』という名称は当時の僕から見て若手集団といった感じのニュアンスだったんだけど、
より狭くは東京一円で開催され続けている常時１００名前後参加する大きな草大会で活躍していた高校生前後のグループ、
後に少し範囲が拡張されて東京の別ブロックで開催されている同規模の大会の常連達を加えた、大学生までの集団（彼らも少しずつ年を取っているからね）を指す言葉だった。

この集団は本当に多くのスタープレイヤーを生み出した。
例えば渡辺雄也はこのグループ出身だし、
プロツアートップ８経験者でいうと鈴木貴文、山本賢太郎、高橋優太、小池貴之、井川良彦、石村信太郎と言った名前が連ねている。

当時、彼らに隣接する彼らより少し古株、『第２世代』を挙げようとすると一仕事になるだろうだろうね。
東京周辺の主なコミュニティ数は店や地域などで複数あり、例えば浅原晃を中心とした東京西部の八王子グループや、鍛冶友浩を送り出した埼玉グループ。
齋藤友晴、栗原伸豪の所属していた池袋、後に三田村和弥が頭角を現す千葉グループなんかがあった。

僕自身この定義では『第２世代』。
というより藤田剛史、石田格のような黎明期から活躍しているプレイヤー以外はほとんど第２世代に分類されるから、
第３世代という言葉には自分たちより『若い世代』という意味が多分に含まれていたんだと思う。
ただしこの場合の若いというのは自分たちと付き合いのあるコミュニティ内で比較的若いといった意味かな。
例えば八十岡翔太なんかは彼らと頻繁にドラフトする仲だったんだけど、
あまりに実力差があって毎回良いレアを持っていくので第３世代からは牧場主（＝自分たちはヤソの羊だってことさ）なんて呼ばれていた。

　彌永はその当時からのプレイヤーでプロツアー日曜日の経験こそないもののグランプリ北九州チャンピオン、そして幻の日本選手権チャンピオンとして知られていて

　日本人プロの間では、実力はあるのにプロツアートップ８入賞がないプレイヤーリストの最後に残った１人という評価だった。
（本当は森田雅彦も、と言いたいのだけど彼はかなり前からプロツアーに対してある程度距離を置いているから難しいだろうね）

彼が初めてトーナメントシーンに顔を出したのは奇しくも７年前の２００５年日本選手権からだ。
彼は１ターン目《山/Mountain》、《金属モックス/Chrome Mox》、《炎歩スリス/Slith Firewalker》という当時の赤単ビートダウンを操り、
日本選手権の決勝テーブルにまで、いや優勝まであと半歩まで来ていた
３本先取の２勝１敗で４本目も《歯と爪/Tooth and Nail》トロンを使う諸藤相手に《炎歩スリス/Slith Firewalker》から、《煮えたぎる歌/Seething Song》で《火と氷の剣/Sword of Fire and Ice》即装着、
諸藤もウルザトロンをなんとか揃えて《トリスケリオン/Triskelion》で対応しようとしたんだけど、とうとう諸藤のライフを０にした。

『今年度の日本選手権チャンピオンは彌永淳也』

だがその栄光は１０分もなかった、
理由は４本目のある箇所だ

必死に防戦する諸藤がタップアウトで《精神隷属器/Mindslaver》を起動した時、
彌永の戦場にいたのは
《ちらつき蛾の生息地/Blinkmoth Nexus》と《火と氷の剣/Sword of Fire and Ice》が付いた《凍らし/Frostling》。
諸藤の戦場にはクリーチャーはいない

彌永はヘッドジャッジにルール上の確認をとった上で、
諸藤のエンドステップ中に《凍らし/Frostling》で自身を対象に生贄に捧げた。
だがこのプレイは本来できない。
何故なら《凍らし/Frostling》は剣の効果でプロテクション赤が付いていて、
いささか不思議な状態だけど自身を対象に自爆が取れなかったからだ。
だが、この時のヘッドジャッジの答えは『出来る』
と言うもので、彌永はこの回答を聞いてその通り最善のプレイをした。

関係者全てがその時最善と思える行動をしたと思う、
そしてその代償を支払い、生まれた傷は長い時間をかけて修復され、全ては過去の話としてこうして話せるようにもなった。

その時にその裁定を下したヘッドジャッジが遠い未来の世界選手権で日本語カバレージを取り、
彌永の試合を見ている風景なんて事情を知っている他人である僕としてはすごく感慨深い光景だと思う。
だが、それと物事の評価というのは全くの別問題だ。

この件はゲーム外の人間が行使できる力の大きさがゲームそのものに作用した悪いケース、
マジックの本質以外の要素がマジック自体をねじ曲げてしまった最悪の部類だ。
こんな事は二度とあってはならないと思うし風化させてはならない。

だがこの話がここで終わらなかったのが、僕が『最悪』と言わなければならない最大の理由だ。
既に傷がついてしまった決勝戦を、このマッチはビデオマッチだったから再現が可能だという理由で
なんとその場面まで４本目を巻き戻してやり直すという裁定が下されたんだ。
そのあとについては詳しく書く必要がないだろう。
彌永は幻の日本チャンピオンになってしまった。

この裁定が彌永にどういう影響を与えたかは、当時僕と彌永の面識が無かったからわからない。
だが、彼はトップ８入賞時に言ってたとおり間近に迫った大学試験の為にこの年日本で開催された世界選手権と日本代表チーム入りを辞退すると同時にマジックからも離れてしまった。これが実際に起こったことだ。

僕が彌永と話すようになったのはタイムスパイラルブロックの２００７年、日本選手権で対戦してからだ。
マジックを離れていた彌永にとってはちょうど復帰戦だったらしいのだけど、
わずか半年後にはグランプリ北九州で優勝してしまい、
それ以降も安定してグレイビートレインを維持してしまうのは流石だね。

普段は物静かなんだけど、興味がある事柄には途端に積極的になるタイプ、
嫌いなことは絶対にやらない、とても合理的なものの考え方をしているんだけど、かと思えば義理をすごく大切にもする。
グランプリ北九州の優勝カップを育ててくれたからという理由で自分が普段遊んでいた草大会の主催者に寄贈したり、そういえば世界選手権では齋藤友晴の店、『晴れる屋』のシャツを着ていたりしたね。

書いてて掴みどころが無いやつだなと思ってしまうんだけど、
それも違うね、たぶん彌永を評すとしたら『ちょっと変わってるけど良い奴』だろう。

僕もなんだけど日本人の中では珍しいと言っていい旅行好きな性格で、
よくアジアのグランプリに一人旅で来ているのに遭遇したり、
ローマ史が好きという共通項があったりして０９年のローマでの世界選手権後に延泊して遺跡を見て回ったりしてと彼とは気がついたら仲良くなっていた
だけどローマまでが彼にとってのプロマジックの区切りだったらしい。

その時に就職活動をする為にマジックからは再び離れると言ってたんだけど、
事実、大学の卒業が迫った２０１０年からマジックの舞台にはほとんど顔を出さなくなってしまった。
彌永が１１年の日本選手権に出るという話を聞いた時には驚いたくらいだ。
でもそれより驚いたのは世界選手権かな、
彌永は元々世界選手権の参加権はあったのだけど、本人は出る気は全くなかった。
それが一転して出場する事を決めたのはマジックオンラインの世界選手権最終予選を勝ち上がったからだ。

『期待値を時給換算すればどんなアルバイトをするよりも効率が良い。』

とは彌永の口から直接聞いた言葉だよ。
マジックオンラインでの予選通過者には世界選手権中に開催される参加するだけで高額賞金が保証されているトーナメントへの参加権も付いてくるからなんだけど。

僕はまさに彌永ならではの発言だなと思ったね。
彼以外がそういったのなら、僕はジョークだと判断するけど僕は彌永が本気でそう思ってるし、本当にそういう理由で出場したと確信している。

もちろんマジックオンライン予選を通過するように彼はかなりを通り超えてのマジック廃人だよ。
でも同時に自分が言ったことについては常にそれを守る律儀さがある。
就職活動でプロマジックから離れると宣言したからには本当に出ない。それを実行してきたんだ。
彌永のマジックでの強みもそこだろうね。
要素の１つずつを丁寧に、確実にこなしていくタイプだ。その判断にブレがないんだ。

ブレがないと一言で済ますのはとても簡単だけど、
完璧に実践出来る人間というのは、僕が思うにこの分野で最も優れているのはパウロなんだけど、そんなパウロや彌永のような本当に少しの人間に限られているよ。

例えば君がマナを全てタップアウトの《火の玉/Fireball》で対戦相手を殺せる時に、
相手が《マナ漏出/Mana Leak》を既に持っていると考えて撃つのを止めたとしよう。
この判断について実際に持ってるか持っていないかは除外するよ。
とにかく君は３マナを浮かせた状態で打てるようになるまでターンを経過させることを選択したとする。
でも肝心の３枚目の土地を引かないんだ、
その間に徐々に対戦相手は有利な場を築いていく。
クロックはどんどん耐え難いものになっていき、次のターンには相手が何か一押しあれば死んでしまうというところまで追い詰められる。
そこまでいっても本体に打つのを我慢できるかい？
ほとんどの人は勝ちへの希望に諦めきれずに《マナ漏出/Mana Leak》を食らいに本体に打ってしまうだろう。

でも、彼らなら本体に《火の玉/Fireball》を打ち込むのを諦めて、
３マナ残して場のクロックに打つことを真っ先に検討するだろう。

あくまで僕の中の評価であって本人達が聞いたら
『そんなことはない』
って怒り出すかもしれないけどね。

もう一つ、彌永のマジックの強さを現すとしたら冷静な、時によっては冷徹すぎるくらいの判断力だ。
切り捨てるのがとても上手なんだ。
プレイングでは無いけど２０１０年以降にほとんどプレミアイベントに顔を出さなくなった理由は本人曰く
自分にとってプロツアーは勝たなくては意味がない、
そして練習に時間が取れなければ勝てないのだから意味がない、
だから出る価値がない。

というものだった。
それはマジック以外でも発揮されて、
時にはそれがとても突き放した物言いに聞こえてしまい誤解される事もあるけど、
彼はとても公平かつ的確な視点で語っているにすぎないんだ。

その証拠に彌永が自分自身を評価する時も同様に徹底的に自分を客観視する。
祝勝会で言っていた
『かつての第３世代中では自分が中位程度の実力者で自分より上はもっといた。』
と発言したり、
『実力で勝ったわけではなく（石村と一緒に作り上げた）デッキが強かった。たぶん歴代で一番弱いチャンピオンだ。』
というのは本人の本心からの言葉だろうね。
でも僕に言わせれば本人が言っていた期待値の４倍以上の賞金を稼ぎ上げたのは間違いなく彌永自身の実力だよ。

プレインズウォーカーポイント導入という大きな流れの中で、
これより先、これより後を区切りとして１つの時代が生まれるかもしれない。
そんな中で彌永は『あの時の日本』という時代を締めくくるのに相応しい存在だと思う。

そして解ってはいるけど敢えてこうも言いたい。

次のインビテーショナルに出るのは君の権利ではなく義務だ。

世界選手権が終わった後、
彌永は再びトーナメントマジックからは姿を消してしまい、
インビテーショナルにも出ないと言っていたのも宣言通りになるだろう。

だけど世界チャンピオンというのは勝つと負けるとかではなく、
そこに在るというのが求められる。
それは世界チャンピオンだけにある価値だ。

プレイヤーオブザイヤーに価値が無くなってしまったのとは、
金銭的なメリットが無くなって目指す価値が無くなったというのもあるけど、
何よりもそこに在るというのが求められなくなってしまったからだと僕は思う。
世界チャンピオンもそうなってはいけないと思うし、そうであって欲しい。

何よりも僕は彌永がインビテーショナルで戦っているところを見てみたい。
それは決して僕だけの意見ではないはずだ。

最後はかなり蛇足になってしまったけど
ここまで読んでくれてありがとう。

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　中村修平

The Modern Metagame

Caw Blade

Sick_Variance (1st Place)
Modern Premier #3345542 on 01/29/2012

1 Arid Mesa 2 Celestial Colonnade 2 Hallowed Fountain 5 Island 1 Moorland Haunt 3 Mutavault 2 Mystic Gate 2 Plains 3 Scalding Tarn 4 Seachrome Coast 1 Steam Vents 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Squadron Hawk 4 Vendilion Clique 1 Batterskull 4 Cryptic Command 2 Gitaxian Probe 1 Mortarpod 4 Path to Exile 4 Remand 3 Spell Snare 1 Steelshaper's Gift 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Sword of Fire and Ice Sideboard 2 Disenchant 1 Engineered Explosives 2 Gut Shot 3 Kitchen Finks 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 1 Relic of Progenitus 2 Suppression Field 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Wrath of God

One of the many blue tempo decks, this one generates card advantage alongside tempo, eschewing Bolt and Helix for Hawks and Cryptic. As always with Caw Blade in its various forms, this version of aggro control seeks to back up cheap threats with efficient countermagic and equipment.

Isochron

_Blaze777_ (7th Place)
Modern Premier #3345532 on 01/27/2012

1 Arid Mesa 2 Celestial Colonnade 1 Hallowed Fountain 4 Island 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Mountain 1 Sacred Foundry 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Steam Vents 3 Sulfur Falls 2 Tectonic Edge 4 Delver of Secrets 3 Snapcaster Mage 2 Vendilion Clique 4 Isochron Scepter 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix 3 Magma Jet 4 Path to Exile 1 Research Development 4 Serum Visions 2 Spell Pierce 2 Spell Snare Sideboard 1 Combust 2 Dispel 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 3 Gifts Ungiven 2 Grim Lavamancer 2 Pyroclasm 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind 1 Unburial Rites 1 Vendilion Clique

This look at aggro disrupts you a little, but mostly just burns you. The Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites and a Fatty package (explained below under Gifts Control) gives people the tough decision of which removal and how much to leave in after sideboard. Play a bunch of answers to Sphinx, and you might just get burned out. Since this deck is narrower than Caw Blade, it’s easier to fight. Making sure you don’t lose to a fast burn clock is step one. Dealing with Gifts/Rites after board is step 2. This deck is easier to fight, but by no means easy. Many lists in my notebook are unfinished because during brewing, I thought of this deck and wondered how I’m going to beat it.

Gifts Control

qbturtle15 (2nd Place)
Modern Premier #3345542 on 01/29/2012

3 Creeping Tar Pit 1 Godless Shrine 2 Hallowed Fountain 2 Island 4 Marsh Flats 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Plains 4 Scalding Tarn 1 Snow-Covered Island 1 Snow-Covered Plains 1 Snow-Covered Swamp 1 Swamp 2 Watery Grave 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 1 Grave Titan 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria 4 Snapcaster Mage 2 Cryptic Command 2 Forbidden Alchemy 4 Gifts Ungiven 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Mana Leak 1 Mystical Teachings 1 Negate 4 Path to Exile 1 Slaughter Pact 1 Smother 1 Talisman of Dominance 2 Talisman of Progress 1 Thirst for Knowledge 2 Thoughtseize 1 Unburial Rites Sideboard 2 Baneslayer Angel 1 Damnation 1 Darkblast 1 Disenchant 1 Divine Offering 1 Negate 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal 1 Rest for the Weary 1 Solemn Offering 2 Thoughtseize 2 Timely Reinforcements 1 Wrath of God

I don’t want to make too much of a couple good finishes, but this deck just makes sense from an evolution of the metagame standpoint. Gifts Ungiven as double Entomb (only “find” 2 cards, Unburial Rites and a fatty, and the opponent must put them in your graveyard) is very powerful against aggressive decks, and gifts for control elements is strong in the control mirror, so it makes sense that Gifts is migrating from sideboards to maindecks. Caw Blade seems a bit tough when you’re playing so many 4 mana spells, but with these tools, there’s ways to build around nearly any problem, so it’ll be interesting to see the next steps.

“Pure” Delver

Demonic_Penguin (1st Place)
Modern Premier #3345532 on 01/27/2012

2 Breeding Pool 1 Forest 6 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Vendilion Clique 3 Burst Lightning 2 Cryptic Command 1 Deprive 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Mana Leak 4 Serum Visions 2 Sleight of Hand 1 Spell Pierce 2 Spell Snare 2 Vedalken Shackles Sideboard 3 Ancient Grudge 2 Combust 1 Dismember 3 Grim Lavamancer 1 Negate 2 Obstinate Baloth 3 Spell Pierce

What I call “Pure” Delver doesn’t try to Isochron or equip a sword, it just plays a pure tempo-burn strategy that puts you a little behind and never lets you catch up. Many other aggro controls players aren’t using Tarmogoyf, so that works to your benefit if you do. Vedalken Shackles is another card that other Delver players will wish they had too when you cast it.

Fae

BraveGhostOfYou (3rd Place)
Modern Premier #3345542 on 01/29/2012

1 Faerie Conclave 18 Island 4 Mutavault 2 Tectonic Edge 4 Mistbind Clique 4 Scion of Oona 2 Spellskite 4 Spellstutter Sprite 3 Vendilion Clique 4 Cryptic Command 3 Mana Leak 4 Remand 4 Spell Snare 3 Vedalken Shackles Sideboard 1 Dismember 2 Hurkyl's Recall 2 Ratchet Bomb 4 Spell Pierce 1 Spellskite 2 Steel Sabotage 2 Threads of Disloyalty 1 Vedalken Shackles

Everyone’s least favorite tribe seems to be slowing down a bit as people adjust. It’s trending down, but still a very powerful deck that will punish anything slow. It feels a step behind other aggro control with a broader range of tools and cards that are just more powerful than Scion of Oona.

Jund

DPS330 (3rd Place)
Modern Premier #3345532 on 01/27/2012

4 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Copperline Gorge 1 Forest 2 Overgrown Tomb 1 Raging Ravine 2 Stomping Ground 2 Swamp 2 Treetop Village 2 Twilight Mire 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Dark Confidant 2 Grim Lavamancer 3 Kitchen Finks 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 2 Blightning 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Liliana of the Veil 3 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Terminate 2 Thoughtseize Sideboard 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Combust 2 Jund Charm 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Obstinate Baloth 2 Seal of Primordium 1 Surgical Extraction 3 Thorn of Amethyst 1 Volcanic Fallout

The deck that just does what it’s always done. A casual glance might make it seem like the deck builds itself and doesn’t adjust to a metagame, but look closer. 4 Lilianas was sacrosanct 3 weeks ago, but that was before opponents were casting Vendilion Clique nearly every round. Grim Lavamancer punishes Delvers and Hawks, and that’s why it’s here. Pilots tend to emphasize Terminate over Pulse as Twin and Fae get more popular. They’ve been getting less popular, so here we see DPS330 using 3 Pulse 2 Terminate.

Melira Pod
DoctorPenick (4th Place)
Modern Premier #3345542 on 01/29/2012

4 Forest 1 Godless Shrine 1 Golgari Rot Farm 1 Horizon Canopy 2 Marsh Flats 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Overgrown Tomb 2 Razorverge Thicket 1 Sunpetal Grove 2 Swamp 1 Temple Garden 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Birds of Paradise 1 Eternal Witness 1 Harmonic Sliver 4 Kitchen Finks 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 3 Melira, Sylvok Outcast 1 Murderous Redcap 1 Ranger of Eos 1 Reveillark 1 Spellskite 1 Sun Titan 3 Viscera Seer 4 Wall of Roots 4 Birthing Pod 4 Chord of Calling 3 Thoughtseize Sideboard 1 Aven Mindcensor 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Dark Confidant 1 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Ghostly Prison 1 Kataki, War's Wage 3 Obstinate Baloth 1 Orzhov Pontiff 1 Praetor's Grasp 1 Qasali Pridemage 1 Shriekmaw 1 Withered Wretch

This deck gets played a lot, so I include it in Tier 1. I’m of the opinion that a Pod deck with all utility stuff and no combo stuff would be better, but what do I know. This deck typically presents a combo kill, that when the opponent disrupts can turn into a beatdown plan or reassemble itself with the Sun Titan or Reveillark or just redundant elements.

Storm

_mRichi_ (4th Place)
Modern Premier #3345532 on 01/27/2012

3 Island 1 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Shivan Reef 2 Steam Vents 4 Sulfur Falls 4 Desperate Ravings 4 Desperate Ritual 2 Empty the Warrens 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Grapeshot 4 Manamorphose 3 Past in Flames 4 Pyretic Ritual 3 Pyromancer Ascension 4 Seething Song 4 Serum Visions 4 Sleight of Hand Sideboard 4 Defense Grid 3 Dispel 3 Echoing Truth 2 Firespout 3 Lightning Bolt

I played at Worlds, but I’m not really a fan of it. A lot has to go right when you play against the decks with 6 Inquisition/Thoughtseize or a bunch of counters and a fast clock. Even against Affinity sideboarding Mindbreak Trap, what seems routine can easily become a loss if your draws aren’t as good as theirs. Having said that… this deck is part of the metagame that you need to prepare for, people play it, and it occasionally performs.

Twin

yugor (3-1)
Modern Daily #3345400 on 01/29/2012

1 Breeding Pool 4 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Steam Vents 4 Sulfur Falls 4 Deceiver Exarch 3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 3 Pestermite 3 Spellskite 4 Dispel 3 Flame Slash 4 Remand 4 Serum Visions 4 Sleight of Hand 4 Splinter Twin Sideboard 4 Ancient Grudge 1 Blood Moon 1 Combust 3 Echoing Truth 3 Firespout 2 Spell Pierce 1 Twisted Image

Had to click a few links before a Twin list popped up, it’s fallen that far out of favor. It definitely still shows up, but it suffers from the fact that people expect it, it’s very narrow, and the format has a ton of creatures in it, so your creature combo runs into Terminates and the like. Be prepared for this deck, but don’t play it.

Tron: Legacy (OK Modern)

DSacks08 (3-1)
Modern Daily #3345400 on 01/29/2012

1 Academy Ruins 1 Adarkar Wastes 4 Celestial Colonnade 1 Eye of Ugin 1 Ghost Quarter 1 Island 1 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 1 Wurmcoil Engine 4 Azorius Signet 2 Condescend 1 Day of Judgment 1 Engineered Explosives 3 Expedition Map 2 Gifts Ungiven 1 Mindslaver 1 Oblivion Ring 4 Path to Exile 4 Remand 1 Repeal 4 Thirst for Knowledge 2 Timely Reinforcements 1 Wrath of God Sideboard 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Disenchant 2 Dismember 2 Dispel 1 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Ghostly Prison 1 Ratchet Bomb 1 Rule of Law 1 Tectonic Edge 1 Timely Reinforcements 1 Torpor Orb

The other gifts deck, and likely the inferior one, feels glacially slow when your draw isn’t perfect. When your draw is really good, you just “come over the top” of whatever the opponent is doing and start taking their turns or Ali Eldrazi’ing them.

Not mentioned: Martyr, Merfolk, Affinity, Teachings, Tokens, other fringe players. Some decks just didn’t show up in top 8’s/4-0s often enough to warrant major concern. People do play affinity, so prepare as you know you can (it isn’t hard). Merfolk is just a very bad aggro control variant. Martyr is close to being good but looks better on paper than in practice.

Addressing the Metagame

I want to present a sort of stream of consciousness about adjusting to this metagame so that whichever of the many competitive decks you want to play, you can find something that’s helpful or just start brainstorming in a similar way about tweaking you deck. When a format is this diverse, preparing only vs a couple decks rather than holistically is dangerous. Many times I’ve ended up 7-2 or 6-3 thinking “If I had just played against [public enemy no. 1] three more times I could have made top 8.” Well, maybe better preparation was what was lacking, not getting paired vs. the same 2 or 3 decks every single round.

Looking at the lists above, here are two cards that are criminally underplayed: Choke and Leyline of Sanctity.

You might not have realized Choke is legal, I didn’t until Kibler mentioned it in passing (he’s always trying to figure out how to make a bad green deck beat better blue decks in every format). You also might not realize that Leyline of Sanctity prevents the opponent from casting Gifts Ungiven, while at the same time it shuts off the Inquisitions and Bolts we expect it to. I love how I want Leyline vs the Isochron deck to stop burn, and at the same time it stops the burn, it stops the Gifts transformation, and it’s very hard to get off the battlefield.

Finding a home for these enchantments isn’t easy, and perhaps that’s the defense in the trial of criminal underplayedness. Leyline of Sanctity does see some play, I would just argue not enough. Still, take a look at how many Islands are in the above lists, and how many decks need to target you to disrupt you or kill you. These sideboard cards could be very powerful.

If you can find a way to stick Ensnaring Bridge and Leyline of Sanctity (or even better, Canonist + Spellskite as Nassif tried in Philly), decks could be locked out. I’ve been working on this idea a bit, and I haven’t struck gold yet, but I’m not done digging.

The next thing to note is how many 1-toughness creatures people intend to kill you with. Whether Vendilion Clique, Scion of Oona, Squadron Hawk, or the “thank god they banned Wild Nacatl and printed a blue one” everpresent Delver of Secrets, if you can deal with a 1/1 you can reduce people’s clocks significantly. I discussed above the wise inclusion of Grim Lavamancer in Jund. Cards like Flame Jab can do similar work in the right list (Gifts for Loam strategies could include a Flame Jab perhaps? Or you could just put Flame Jab in a burn deck and get value out of it). Magma Jet is too low impact in some formats, but not this one.

Firespout tends to be as good as Wrath of God, with some notable exceptions (Tarmogoyf). Damnation and Wrath being a turn slower than Firespout matters a great deal when Delver or Fae is the enemy. You might be able to cast Firespout but dead or Mistbind/Cryptic’d out of casting a Wrath. The fact that Wraths feel a little slow works to the benefit of fringe players like WW Tokens and Martyr.

Graveyard hate is pretty low value overall, but it might be all you have against the Gifts plan. White Leyline might not be appropriate in your deck, so something like Surgical Extraction might make sense to counter Unburial Rites or weaken combo’s redundancy. Extraction type cards aren’t great as pure “utility” but the exception is against combo where 1) you often have a ton of dead or low impact cards to board out and B) getting rid of that one piece might actually break up an opponent’s combo, they’re not that redundant. Stuff like Nihil Spellbomb and Relic of Progenitus cycles, which is nice, and could turn of Snapcasters. Not a bad way to address part of the Snapcaster + Gifts plan decks.

Despite Tarmogoyfs (relative) decline, Spell Snare remains strong. This one isn’t rocket science, there are many targets, and when you have many targets, a 1-mana Counterspell is a good place to be.

There aren’t that many Ancient Grudges these days. I didn’t list affinity because it hasn’t been performing even acceptably. However, as people skimp on Grudges, the sleeping dog could wake up hungry.

Gaddock Teeg is getting somewhat interesting with the Gifts and Cryptics, Pods and Chord of Callings, but it’s probably too hard to rely on, because if they have red he just gets Bolted.

Beware of the transformational sideboard, aka how I learned to stop caring and leave my Path to Exiles in. If someone is playing creature light control game 1, odds are decent that Unburial Rites or Baneslayer Angel get sided in for games 2 and 3. Don’t get caught with just your “deck” in your hands.

Affinity is your Modern aggro yardstick.

We’ve seen that from the recent PTQ results, which feature quite a bit of Affinity. In fact, the most up-to-date PTQ results show that a stunning 65% of all aggro decks in PTQ top 8s are Affinity, and 75% of the wins that have gone to aggro have gone to Affinity.

Quirkily, as Melissa DeTora pointed out in her own recent PTQ report, most of the “Affinity” decks in Modern right now have few or no cards with the actual Affinity mechanic in them. Since the name Affinity is now our shorthand for “an artifact-centric deck with Ravager and Cranial Plating,” we won’t try to rename those decks that lack Affinity cards. On a practical level, this non-Affinity nature of modern “Affinity” decks has changed how we have to fight them…which is the topic of today’s article.

Modern Affinity fundamentally sidesteps many of our basic assumptions about fighting aggro, and those sidesteps require that we change our plan of attack. So let’s jump in and take a look at why Affinity is so powerful, why your current game plan may just be wrong, and how you can kill those robots when you need to.

The core killers

Modern Affinity is a somewhat different beast than Affinity of prior Extended seasons or Affinity in Legacy. With the absence of the artifact lands, it’s a little bit les explosive…but the ways it can push through are quite effective, and can end games quite suddenly.

Cranial Plating

Many of the successful Affinity decks in the current PTQ season look like this:

Affinity (as played by Corbett Gray to a PTQ win)

4 Memnite 4 Mox Opal 4 Ornithopter 2 Welding Jar 4 Galvanic Blast 4 Signal Pest 3 Springleaf Drum 2 Steelshaper's Gift 4 Cranial Plating 3 Shrapnel Blast 3 Steel Overseer 4 Vault Skirge 4 Etched Champion 3 Blinkmoth Nexus 4 Darksteel Citadel 3 Glimmervoid 4 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Mountain Sideboard 2 Ancient Grudge 3 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Mortarpod 3 Spellskite 2 Torpar Orb 4 Blood Moon

These decks run two copies of Steelshaper’s Gift with just the one main deck target – Cranial Plating. Essentially, those Gifts are copies 5-6 of Cranial Plating, which underscores the importance of Plating to the deck.

Cranial Plating is the Kessig Wolf Run or Sovereigns of Lost Alara of the Affinity deck. They make every creature in the deck a potential one-shot killer, and they dramatically undercut the value of using point removal on creatures, since Affinity has a fairly robust supply of tiny, cheap critters to pick up the plating and bash your head in.

Etched Champion

Although I was a big fan of its Oracular older cousin a few Extended seasons ago, I have to admit I wasn’t expecting Etched Champion to be such a big player in Modern Affinity. A three-mana 2/2 doesn’t feel like the most exciting thing ever…but a three mana 2/2 with protection from all colors is devilishly hard for most Modern decks to deal with.

The value of Etched Champion’s protection is manifold. Obviously, it can walk by most defenders, which is genuinely painful when you’ve slapped a Cranial Plating on it. Even without the Plating, Champion puts opponents on a definite, nearly unstoppable clock. It can also hold the ground against opposing Tarmogoyfs and other non-evasive fatties while Skirges and other flyers finish the game up top.

Signal Pest

Signal Pest is the deceptive third leg in the killer triad that fuels Modern Affinity. There are two key reasons Signal Pest is such a problem card for anyone hoping to take down Affinity.

First, the Pest is a down payment on an impressive amount of future damage. Lest you lose track of this, consider what it means to have, versus not, a Signal Pest with an Ornithopter and a Memnite from turn one onward. Whereas the Memnite clock is, well, twenty turns, the Memnite, Ornithopter, and Signal Pest triad will take an opponent down in seven turns with no outside assistance. Obviously, each additional cheap creature or Blinkmoth Nexus only makes the return on investment for that initial Signal Pest that much larger.

Second, the Pest walks right past all those groundbound blockers, meaning it’s another fine carrier for Cranial Plating.

They’ve adapted to our weapons!

That’s the lethal triad powering Modern Affinity…and it’s also a good place to start talking about why you can’t get away with running the same old anti-aggro tools you’re used to relying on. You actually can’t even get away with running the same old anti-Affinity tools you’ve been relying on, as we’ll discuss below.

Let’s take a look at some of those anti-aggro tools that you may want to lean on…but can no longer rely on.

Blocking

Part of the amazing effectiveness of Kitchen Finks and Timely Reinforcements as anti-aggro cards is the fact that they not only block, but do so repeatedly. Although it’s also nice if they can trade with an attacking creature, the sheer act of wasting two or three turns of an attacking creature’s time is often enough to buy your deck time to do whatever it needs to do to win.

With that in mind, let’s return to another winning Affinity list:

Affinity (as played by Melissa DeTora to a PTQ win)

4 Memnite 4 Mox Opal 4 Ornithopter 4 Galvanic Blast 4 Signal Pest 3 Springleaf Drum 2 Steelshaper's Gift 4 Arcbound Ravager 4 Cranial Plating 3 Shrapnel Blast 1 Steel Overseer 4 Vault Skirge 4 Etched Champion 4 Blinkmoth Nexus 4 Darksteel Citadel 2 Glimmervoid 3 Inkmoth Nexus 2 Mountain Sideboard 2 Ancient Grudge 4 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Spellskite 1 Torpor Orb 2 Whipflare 4 Blood Moon

Melissa’s deck has…

That’s twenty-three creatures with the ability to simply make an end-run around your hapless blockers. Corbett Gray’s list features the same extensive selection of attackers that your Finks will never, ever get to block. When we compound this with the existence of Cranial Plating, it’s clear that time spent generating blockers is, by and large, time wasted in fighting Affinity.

Gaining life

As curious as this sounds, gaining life is not a very effective option against Affinity in Modern. It’s not the worst thing ever, of course – any life gain forces your Affinity opponent to put that much extra effort in to be able to kill you. However, it’s not nearly as effective as you may be used to against, say, Zoo.

A typical aggro deck has creatures and reach that, in most games, deal damage at a fairly consistent rate. As a result, gaining 6 life from Timely Reinforcements actually translates fairly directly into counteracting two turns worth of burn-based reach…which means that you can now plan around that extra time, based on the life you just gained.

Cranial Plating completely undermines this kind of planning. A Plating off the top of an Affinity opponent’s deck can suddenly change the situation from them pinging you for a few points per turn with a Vault Skirge and a Nexus into them hitting you for six or seven point chunks with that same Skirge…or just one-shotting you with an Inkmoth Nexus, which renders life gain doubly irrelevant.

Artifact sweepers

One of the joys of prior Extended seasons was being able to hit your Affinity opponent with an artifact sweeper. For a long time, the universal kill switch for Affinity decks was Pernicious Deed, which pretty much ended the game for then right then and there.

This category of cards is still decent against Modern Affinity, but much less so. To understand why, consider Sam Stein’s list from Pro Tour Valencia 2007 (aka Pro Tour Flood):

Affinity (as played to a top 8 PT finish by Sam Stein)

4 Ornithopter 3 Tormod's Crypt 4 Arcbound Worker 4 Chromatic Star 3 Pithing Needle 4 Arcbound Ravager 4 Cranial Plating 3 Tarmogoyf 4 Frogmite 4 Thoughtcast 4 Myr Enforcer 4 Blinkmoth Nexus 1 Darksteel Citadel 2 Glimmervoid 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Tree of Tales 4 Vault of Whispers Sideboard 1 Tormod's Crypt 4 Cabal Therapy 3 Spell Snare 3 Seal of Primordium 3 Smother 1 Tarmogoyf

A solid 77% of Sam’s main deck consists of destroyable artifacts (e.g. every artifact that isn’t a Darksteel Citadel). In contrast, only 60% of Melissa’s deck is destroyable artifacts.

More to the point, two thirds of Sam’s lands are destroyable artifacts. That, in combination with cards that were either hard (Frogmite) or impossible (Enforcer) to cast without many artifacts to fuel the Affinity mechanic meant that not only were artifact sweepers devastating, the deck did not recover from them at all.

In contrast, even if you manage to fire a Creeping Corrosion across the bow of Melissa’s deck, she still keeps all of her lands…and has almost no cards that care about you having artifacts around for them to work (although some obviously work far better with more artifacts around). So if your Affinity opponent has already mauled you, even if you hit them with a Corrosion, they might just untapped, cast a new Cranial Plating, equip it to a Nexus, and kill you.

Before we move on, just another quick note on why your intuition about blocking and Affinity may be wrong, at least if you played in old Extended – look at Sam’s list again. His deck features eight flyers, no other evasion, and no creatures with protection. That’s a far cry from the twenty-three mostly unblockable creatures found in both the Modern Affinity lists we’ve looked at so far.

Okay, so I’ll just go home, then

So blocking is bad, life gain isn’t enough, sweepers don’t do the job, and we’re going to be murdered by roving gangs of Champions and Pests armed with Cranial Plating. That’s grim.

What can we do to succeed against our new aggro enemy?

Win first

It sounds facetious, but “win first” or maybe just “win faster” is a solid strategy against a fast, yet fairly non-interactive deck such as Affinity.

Affinity’s defining terribleness can be summed up as “wins out of nowhere.” Against decks that can do so, what you probably don’t want to do is run a game plan of incremental advantage that tries to grind to victory. For example, against traditional Zoo, it’s entirely reasonable for a typical control deck to counter some stuff, kill some creatures, gain some life, and then recruit Tiago Chan to slap their opponent to death.

But against Affinity, Tiago will just watch as a Plated-up Inkmoth flies overhead and poisons you to death.

The “win first” idea probably applies more generally in Modern, since there are several decks that can go from zero to “kill you” in the space of one or two turns. That’s probably what you’re seeing in top eights like this one:

In pondering how to shoehorn a fast win into your deck of choice, consider that “win first” is a pithy expression of the actual underlying idea, which is “nullify their game plan first.” In most cases, the one, definitive way to nullify your opponent’s game plan is to actually win the game, so that’s the method we focus on. However, there are other plays that are nearly as good, such as Gifts for Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn. Norn keeps essentially all of the Affinity deck’s creatures from even existing, forcing them to, say, chain burn spells together to get out from under their Phyrexian overlord’s dismissive gaze.

Kataki, on the other hand, is not nearly so definitive, being vulnerable to even an unpowered Galvanic Blast. It’s not just about the card kicking their strategy in the teeth, but also about it being resilient against whatever solutions Affinity has handy.

So “win fast” is one option, whether that means actually winning or killing their game plan.

Instants, really

As we saw, those sweeping anti-artifact Sorceries aren’t nearly as cool as they used to be. This is partially because Modern Affinity lacks a fragile artifact mana base and doesn’t rely on the actual Affinity mechanic. It’s also because each Modern Affinity deck packs seven or eight threats that masquerade as lands during your opponent’s turn. No amount of Creeping Corrosion will ever kill an Inkmoth or Blinkmoth unless your opponent is especially cooperative.

So, Instants.

But more than that, we want Instants that can hit artifacts. It’s nice to Doom Blade a Blinkmoth Nexus, but the Affinity deck will serve up a continuing stream of evasive killer robots who are only too happy to pick up some Cranial Plating and harm you.

The real threat here is clearly the Cranial Plating.

That isn’t to say that the real threat is always the Cranial Plating. Sometimes it’s a single, pesky Blinkmoth Nexus, or a Signal Pest that’s powering up a swarm of Ornithopters.

But what generally is true is that many of the dire threats can turn up on the Affinity player’s turn, and essentially all of them are vulnerable to effects that destroy artifacts. A Divine Offering or Ancient Grudge can kill three quarters of the threats in Corbett Gray’s main deck (the exceptions being those Etched Champions and the burn spells).

…and if you can keep an artifact-destroying Instant at the ready, you can effectively convert your opponent’s Affinity deck from a “win from nowhere” build into plain old aggro with a predictable turn-by-turn damage output. Suddenly, your life gain is worthwhile again, and you can plan your path to victory based on a more stable understanding of how long it will take them to kill you.

Fracturing Gust, as an Instant, is a notable exception to the sweeper deficiencies we covered above. Of course, it also costs five, which is a strong argument for having much cheaper Instants around so that you live long enough to ambush them with that deadly Gust.

Plan or pray – pick one

This was Chikara Nakajima’s actual turn one in game four of the quarterfinals at PT Philadelphia.

Some matchups require just a few card changes to nudge you into positive territory. Maybe you want to replace some dead removal with disruption against a combo deck, or pull in some more removal and life gain when you’re facing a typical aggro enemy.

Affinity is not one of those matchups.

Throwing in one or two cards against Affinity is just not going to be worth the space most of the time. You’re probably diluting your other pairings and you’re just going to be swarmed by angry robots anyway.

That’s not to say that you need an all-Affinity transformative sideboard. Just that you need to have a well-defined game plan against Affinity, and you need to decide if that’s going to mean having lots of solutions for Affinity, or alternately bolstering your primary game plan so it’s resilient against the hate Affinity brings – for example, a Past in Flames deck might choose to bring in some more options to bounce or kill Ethersworn Canonist, but otherwise stick to their overall game plan.

But you need to have one of these plans in mind – bolster your main game plan, really take on Affinity, or just ignore it and hope for the best. This is because Affinity will just win no matter what a certain percentage of the time due to hyper-aggressive draws. Given that, your anti-Affinity plan really needs to support you actually winning two games, instead of just giving you a marginally higher win percentage.

Developing your anti-robot plan

Despite sharing a name and some key traits, Modern Affinity is a significantly different beast than its Extended and even Legacy predecessors. It’s also quite unlike most of the other aggro options in Modern. These facts combine to yield an enemy that requires specific thought and preparation if you’re going to take it down on your way to a PTQ win.

….which you’re gonna have to do, since those killer robots are swarming all over this season’s top eights.

Although each archetype will have its own specific approach to taking on the robot menace, the generally outlines I’ve covered here should put you on the right track to passing the fundamental test of the current Modern format.

***
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5.0: Multi-format All-Star (and undoubtedly worth too much money). Snapcaster Mage. Tarmogoyf.

4.0: Format staple. Mana Leak. Moorland Haunt.

3.5: Good in multiple archetypes, but not a format staple. Inkmoth Nexus. Primeval Titan Geist of Saint Traft.

3.0: Archetype staple. Gut Shot. Tempered Steel.

2.5: Role-player in some decks, but not quite a staple. Think Twice. Curse of Death’s Hold.

2.0: Niche card. Sideboard or currently unknown archetype. Celestial Purge. (Bear in mind that many cards fall into this category, although explanation of why is obviously important)

1.0 It has seen play once. One with Nothing. (I believe it was tech vs Owling Mine, although fairly suspicious tech at that.)

Limited

5.0: I will always play this card. Period.

4.5: I will almost always play this card, regardless of what else I get.

4.0: I will strongly consider playing this as the only card of its color.

3.5: I feel a strong pull into this card’s color.

3.0: This card makes me want to play this color. (Given that I’m playing that color, I will play this card 100% of the time.)

2.5: Several cards of this power level start to pull me into this color. If playing that color, I essentially always play these. (Given that I’m playing that color, I will play this card 90% of the time.)

2.0: If I’m playing this color, I usually play these. (70%)

1.5: This card will make the cut into the main deck about half the times I play this color. (50%)

1.0: I feel bad when this card is in my main deck. (30%)

0.5: There are situations where I might sideboard this into my deck, but I’ll never start it. (10%)

0.0: I will never put this card into my deck (main deck or after sideboarding). (0%).

Afflicted Deserter/Werewolf Ransacker

Constructed: 1.0

Ancient Grudge is so crushingly effective at killing artifacts that any new way faces an incredibly high barrier to entry. This is also afflicted with the problem of not immediately killing anything, and taking over a turn cycle to even attempt to do so.

Limited: 2.5

I play Tormented Pariah more often than I’d like to admit, and this is basically the same thing with a really awesome bonus some of the time. Having the ability to just at any time pass the turn and smash one of their artifacts to smithereens is awesome, and costs you only a point of power off of an already playable card.

Alpha Brawl

Constructed: 1.0

Unfortunately, high marks in flavor don’t make up for low marks in mana cost, effect, flexibility, and power. In the best case scenario, it’s a Plague Wind, but a Plague Wind that requires that they have the right combination of creatures out to work is pretty suspect.

Limited: 2.5

It is the alpha and the omega, and rightfully costs 8 mana as a result. Much like Insurrection, it is going to win the game much of the time, but requires them to have a bunch of creatures and again, costs a ton of mana. Not every deck can play eight drops, and I wouldn’t just toss this into any deck without considering how you are going to make the game last long enough to cast it.

Blood Feud

Constructed: 1.0

This costs a feud too many mana for it to be worthy of Constructed consideration.

Limited: 3.5

Any Twinstrikes? It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out a way to get them with this, and worst comes to worst, your big guy eats their small one. I’ve been pretty impressed with this so far.

Burning Oil

Constructed: 1.0

This is to Lightning Helix as Farbog Boneflinger is to Skinrender; worse in basically every way. Just cast Incinerate and be done with it.

Limited: 3.0

Burning Oil is more than fine if you can’t flash it back, and quite good if you can. So far, it mostly has been played in R/x decks with only a few ways to get white mana, since RW is a pretty horrible color combination in general. I’m not unhappy to take this early.

Curse of Bloodletting

Constructed: 1.0

I’m not letting this one pass without making a comparison to Furnace of Rath, which is equally unplayable.

Limited: 0.0

Target opponent loses half their life for five mana is in no way a good card, and it even rounds down (since 5 life really becomes 3, etc). I really wish Curses were pushed a little more aggressively, since they are a pretty cool mechanic.

Erdwal Ripper

Constructed: 1.0

Stromkirk Noble is obviously better on turn one or two, but I guess this is a better rip in the mid to late game, which still doesn’t make it playable.

Limited: 3.0

As long as you can deal with the mana cost, you have a solid card on your hands. Even if it doesn’t have the opportunity to start off as a 3/2, a two-power guy is generally worth a card at any point in the game.

Faithful Looting (is what Martin Juza calls it)

Constructed: 2.5

The applications here are pretty widespread, since Looting both lets you see a lot of cards and dump them in the graveyard at a pretty low cost. Net losing a card will restrict this to decks that actually have interest in graveyard synergies, but those synergies can take many different shapes. Unburial Rites is one direction, Mulch/Boneyard Wurm/Splinterfright is another, and some sort of Burning Vengeance shenanigans is yet another. That’s just in Standard, and there are clearly places in Legacy where this might fit, even if red is much worse than blue (which has Careful Study). Caleb wrote an entire article about this, and some of his ideas seem kind of sweet too.

Limited: 3.0

Most decks don’t need more than 5-6 lands at any one time, so even though you end up down a physical card, you effectively are going to be up 1-2 cards by using this, as well as increasing card quality. It may not be Merfolk Looter, but it’s surprisingly close, and I’ve been impressed so far.

Fires of Undeath

Constructed: 2.0

This is closer to being a Constructed-caliber card than it looks, which was also true of its forefather, Strangling Soot. Paying three to kill a guy and having the option to later pay six and kill another is just the kind of value card that is worth looking at. Granted, cards (and creatures specifically) have gotten way better since Soot was printed, but this is still something to keep in mind. At the very least, this is highly likely to show up in Block Constructed.

Limited: 4.0

Either half of this is playable (and the first half is straight up good), it’s in one of the best color combinations, and it’s the best red common. Is there anything else?

Flayer of the Hatebound

Constructed: 1.0

If you are anything like half of the people on our testing team, you are bound to have thought this was Flametongue Kavu with Undying, when it actually has to die before you get to kill something. As it turns out, it isn’t FTK, and with that goes its Constructed playability.

Limited: 4.0

Even without any work at all, this is a board-dominating play, and with a few sac outlets it becomes pretty sick. That isn’t even taking into account what happens if a different Undying guy dies, but you’d have to be the luckiest person on the planet for that to happen.

Fling

Constructed: 1.0

I don’t care how many times they keep printing this, I’m never flinging it into any Constructed deck.

Limited: 2.0

Fling isn’t a card I’d play in every deck, but it doesn’t take much to make it a fine 23rd card. It obviously works quite well with Undying guys, particularly Nearheath Stalker, and is a passable finisher in an aggressive deck.

Forge Devil

Constructed: 1.0

I’m not convinced you want a 1 damage for one mana effect at all, but if you do, Gut Shot and Geistflame are both ahead of this guy. Plus, he doesn’t even go to the face, which isn’t irrelevant, so I’d probably just forget about trying him.

Limited: 3.0

I’m always going to maindeck the first of these, and usually the second, but I won’t be afraid to sideboard them out when applicable. It should be pretty easy to tell when they aren’t good, and even when they are good, they aren’t really exciting.

Heckling Fiends

Constructed: 1.0

If your opponent can’t attack you profitably in Constructed, you are probably in good shape already, not that I really needed to explain why this is bad.

Limited: 3.0

You aren’t really paying too much for the body here, and the ability can lead to some nice blowouts. Sometimes in an aggressive deck you will just make them hit you so you can hit them back, as well as the obvious use of nabbing free cards when you have good blocks available.

Hellrider

Constructed: 2.0

The comparison to Hero of Oxid Ridge is about the most obvious thing in the world, and I don’t think it ends favorably for Hellrider. Making 1-power guys (tokens and Doomed Travelers primarily) unable to block is a huge game, and all you get in exchange is a point of toughness instead of power and a slightly better 1 damage effect. Hellrider isn’t stone unplayable, but it’s enough worse than Hero that I’d be inclined to head over to Oxid Ridge if I needed a four-drop.

Limited: 3.5

Hellrider delivers a huge beatdown, but is still not all that much more insane than a Hill Giant on many boards. You already want to be aggressive in this format, so it’s definitely a threat, but I still don’t see myself taking this over Flames of Undeath. Some games they will just be dead to Hellrider, but removal is still removal.

Hinterland Hermit/Hinterland Scourge

Constructed: 1.0

Behold, the scourge of Constructed!

Limited: 2.5

Hinterland Hermit is about exactly as good as he looks, which isn’t exciting. As a 2-drop, he’s not getting cut very often, but nobody is ever excited to draft or play this card. Be aware that “must be blocked” is also not all that powerful, since they still get to choose how to block him, a fact I’ve seen people

Increasing Vengeance

Constructed: 2.0

Seeing as how versions of this without flashback have already found homes in Constructed (albeit with the ability to randomly copy opponent’s spells), it is hard to see how increasing the power level isn’t at least somewhat interesting. Fork effects are only as playable as the spells around them, and without Howling Mine, Time Warp, and the other usual suspects, vengeance levels are probably going to stay right about where they are curently.

Limited: 1.5

If your deck is very sweet, this card certainly increases in value, but most decks aren’t going to have the roster of spells necessary to take advantage of it. You need 5+ good and cheap spells; any less and it’s going to be hard to get this off the ground.

Markov Blademaster

Constructed: 1.0

This racks up the damage at an alarming rate...if you disregard the fact that it costs three and dies to every removal spell under the sun. They can even just chump it if it becomes a problem, so I’m officially marking this ov my list.

Limited: 3.0

Getting it to connect the first time is the only hurdle, since once it becomes a 3/3 it’s nigh-unstoppable. I’m sure between Nightbird's Clutches, Crossway Vampire, and the numerous removal spells, it will find a way in.

Markov Warlord

Constructed: 1.0

I think I’ll stick with Inferno Titan, if I’m forced to play a red six-drop.

Limited: 3.5

You can’t afford to play too many curve-toppers, but this is one of the better ones. If it doesn’t immediately kill them, it gets pretty close, and there isn’t much they can do about it.

Mondronen Shaman/Tovolar’s Magehunter

Constructed: 1.0

As the spoiler kept growing, I couldn’t help but notice how far every werewolf fell short of the best one, the Huntmaster. Spellshock targeting them is cute, but you can’t rely on that well enough to play this as more than just a beater, where it is destined to fail. To reiterate what I’ve said many times: werewolves need to be good on the front in order to make the cut, and this isn’t.

Moonveil Dragon

Constructed: 1.0

Let's just say that when we do our Hit or Myth segment on Magic TV, this is solidly in the Myth camp. The whole six-mana firebreathing Dragon thing has been done to death, and there’s nothing here that’s remotely interesting.

Limited: 4.0

Dearly Departed is one thing, and this is completely another. Firebreathe your entire team is an enormous game, and a 5/5 flier is nothing to scoff at either.

Nearheath Stalker

Constructed: 1.0

I don’t know what he’s near to, but it sure isn’t Constructed.

Limited: 3.0

It’s pretty nice tapping out for a five-drop and being safe from most removal spells, and being able to get into combat without fear isn’t shabby either. The stats here make this just look bad, but it plays well.

Pyreheart Wolf

Constructed: 1.0

It literally contains the heart of the cards, and yet is still not remotely playable.

Limited: 1.5

Pyreheart Wolf is another example of the small things adding up. It’s rare that the Wolf will end the game in a single attack, though that does happen, but it does a good job of forcing through a few points, coming back as a real creature, and then forcing through a few more. You obviously don’t want this unless you are aggressive, which is most red decks in this format.

Russet Wolves

Constructed: 1.0

Hill Giants haven’t been a staple of Constructed since...never, as far as I know. Now if we were talking about Ernham Djinns...

Limited: 2.0

Hey, at least it’s an upgrade to Riot Devils. This does about what you expect for your curve and creature count, but you are never happy about it.

Scorch the Fields

Constructed: 1.0

Rolling Spoil used to be a sweet Block Constructed card, but it cost one less mana, had bouncelands to hit, and killed anything, not just Humans.

Limited: 0.5

This is a sideboard card, and a bad one at that. Some decks will have enough 1/1 Humans that it’s worth it, but it’s going to be rare that you actually want it.

Shattered Perception

Constructed: 2.0

Every now and then you receive a Constructed windfall in the strangest places, and Mulch and whatnot make this a possibility. I think Faithless Looting does a much better job of all that, but you might want a 5th or 6th copy, and this is more powerful.

Limited: 1.0

You have to be going pretty deep with flashback and other graveyard shenanigans to want this, and be assured that nobody else at the table will. I look forward to playing with it, even though I know BenS will yell at me when I do.

Talons of Falkenrath

Constructed: 1.0

I have to admit, I’m pretty talonted at coming up with things to say about cards like this.

Limited: 0.5

I don’t know how many Invisible Stalkers you need before this becomes a bad 23rd card, but I hope I never find out.

Torch Fiend

Constructed: 1.0

While this is much better than Hearth Kami, and Hearth Kami wasn’t just unplayable, the abundance of great artifact kill (Ancient Grudge, Manic Vandal) makes this unlikely to ever torch something outside of Limited.

Limited: 2.5

A two-drop with a minor bonus isn’t something you are going to turn away, even if you don’t have a burning desire to pick it in the first place.

Wrack with Madness

Constructed: 1.0

Considering this for a Constructed deck is certainly a sign of madness.

Limited: 3.0

There aren’t too many things that live through this, so unless you have the misfortune of facing down the dreaded Fortress Crab deck, it does the job.

Top 5 Commons

5. Nearheath Stalker
4. Forge Devil
3. Faithless Looting
2. Wrack with Madness
1. Flames of Undeath

As usual, red gets the best common, but unlike normal, red isn’t much more shallow than other colors. Good deal for red! The commons in this set are so mediocre that it is surprising that red came out relatively unscathed, with multiple removal spells, a decent card draw engine, and some fine creatures.

Top 5 Constructed Cards

5. Increasing Vengeance
4. Shattered Perception
3. Hellrider
2. Fires of Undeath
1. Faithless Looting

Wow, red really got burned in this set. Don’t get me wrong, Faithless Looting is pretty good, but the dropoff after it is drastic. I don’t think any of the other cards on the list are in any way locks to see Constructed play at all, much less be good. I suppose that Huntmaster of the Fells will make things look a little better, and I haven’t gotten to him yet, but the mono-red cards in this set are pretty bad.

Tomorrow I cover Green, which may be a legitimate beatdown color once again!

LSV

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

The big cheese himself is the chase mythic of the set and easily one of the top five cards in the set. I still think Lingering Souls and Faithless Looting will have more impact in formats than Sorin, however he’s still a nice addition to the line of merely good Planeswalkers. The two comparisons I’ve seen made most are Sorin to Elspeth or Sorin to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. My feelings on Sorin mirror the ones I had for Liliana of the Veil in Innistrad, a solid card that’ll be tricky to fit into most decks and will be looking for a home. Fortunately for Sorin, they pushed token strategies very hard with Innistrad and Dark Ascension so we can build a deck with Sorin as the centerpiece and have plenty of great weapons around him.

Outside of token strategies though, where does Sorin really fit in? In straight aggro not only is B/W a painful color combination to fit, but an Anthem effect just isn’t as powerful as other creature power-ups when there’s only one or two creatures on your side of the field at a given time. Creating an army of 1/1′s over a couple of turns also sounds a lot better when your have a multitude of ways to make them into real threats, lacking evasion really hurts when pumping guys out in normal decks. So what about the control strategies? You run into a similar problem here where most strategies that seek board control are better off casting a Lingering Souls or Timely Reinforcements instead of a Sorin making lifelink tokens. Without real use of the 2nd or 3rd abilities, there just isn’t a lot you really gain from Sorin over other board control cards. The biggest gain from Sorin to Elspeth or Gideon Jura in that department is purely the mana cost involved, otherwise you simply are trading for the privilege of having a big shiny planeswalker to potentially distract the opponent.

Most of the lists I’ve seen featuring Sorin are fine, if a bit unrefined, like I said last week I think one of the biggest keys is having stable mana. Even with the addition of Evolving Wilds, that hardly means all the mana is now magically good in a BW build. Pick a primary color and only splash what you need to minimize the odds of getting color-screwed and making your mulligan decisions that much easier. The second key should be if you want to be primarily tokens or be a W/B/X aggro deck that simply abuses Lingering Souls and Sorin. It may not sound like a big difference, but it can vastly change what cards best suit your purposes.

For example, in the average WB Token deck, I usually see a ton of creatures that maintain value in the face of spot removal either by making multiple bodies or being Doomed Traveler. Inevitably I scroll down and see Hero of Bladehold, which while being a strong card, seems misplaced in this type of strategy. A big point in favor of Token strategies is reducing the power of spot removal and these decks have already removed the rest of the cards that can easily be killed off via Doom Blade, Oblivion Ring, etc. By adding a set of Hero of Bladehold to the maindeck, you are letting players cash in this spot removal on your four-drop when previously they had no good way to gain any value off of it. Hero still may be the best card for the slot but right now her place in the maindeck seems like more of an ungraceful choice for the maindeck given the rest of the choices. On the other hand if you run cards like Champion of the Parish and other creatures which can be killed off, there isn’t a lot of reason not to throw her in anyway.

Here are my initial lists for WB Tokens, WB Humans and WBG Tokens.

4 Doomed Traveler 4 Gather the Townsfolk 4 Midnight Haunting 4 Lingering Souls 4 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 4 Shrine of Loyal Legions 4 Honor of the Pure 4 Intangible Virtue 3 Dismember 10 Plains 3 Swamp 4 Isolated Chapel 4 Evolving Wilds 3 Vault of the Archangel 1 Shimmering Grotto Sideboard 4 Hero of Bladehold 3 Oblivion Ring 3 Divine Offering 3 Gideon Jura 2 Elspeth Tirel

For game one I think Shrine of Loyal Legions plays better with the deck, giving it another useful two-drop and reducing the number of hands where it the curve looks like:

Land, go
Land, Anthem, go
Land, Threat

Shrine can also trump the mirror rather easily if you hit a Shrine on turn two and a Sorin on turn four. Being able to crack open an army of five 2/1′s on turn six gives most opponents only one or two turns of action before they end up overwhelmed by Myr. While it is unfortunate that Honor of the Pure doesn’t affect the Myr tokens, you still have 8 effects that pump them and even just having an army of 1/1′s can be enough against a Delver deck or something that can’t sweep the board. I also like having some way to interact with opposing creatures whether it be Doom Blade, Dismember or Oblivion Ring. The one in the deck currently is more or less a placeholder until we see how the metagame settles out and that its the best card against UW Delver decks.

4 Champion of the Parish 4 Doomed Traveler 3 Gather the Townsfolk 3 Grand Abolisher 2 Fiend Hunter 3 Lingering Souls 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Hero of Bladehold 4 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 4 Honor of the Pure 2 Dismember 12 Plains 2 Swamp 4 Isolated Chapel 3 Evolving Wilds 2 Vault of the Archangel