Blow 3.0

So can we jam for a second about how awesome it is that Blow is back in standard?

Esper Humans

4 Godless Shrine
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Mutavault
4 Plains
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Temple of Silence
3 Watery Grave

2 Ephara, God of the Polis
4 Imposing Sovereign
4 Lyev Skyknight
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
3 Precinct Captain
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Xathrid Necromancer

4 Detention Sphere
1 Far // Away
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Spear of Heliod
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Ultimate Price
2 Whip of Erebos

Sideboard:
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
2 Dark Betrayal
2 Doom Blade
1 Duress
2 Gainsay
1 Glare of Heresy
1 Hero's Downfall

So now you're probably thinking, what the fuck is Blow and what does it have to do with Esper Humans?

We'll work backward from the present. 

Blow 2.04 Rotlung Reanimator
4 Nova Cleric

2 Doomed Necromancer
3 Withered Wretch
4 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Foothill Guide
3 Astral Slide
4 Wrath of God
4 Renewed Faith
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Worship
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Barren Moor
9 Plains
5 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Sacred Ground
1 Oblivion Stone
4 Altar's Light
3 Karma

3 Holy Day

In 2003, I advocated briefly for this deck to be considered for players heading to the State Championships. The year before, during the 2002 version, a B/W Cleric deck called Blow won Iowa Champs piloted by Gabriel Stoffa. We'll get to the Iowa deck in a minute, but analyzing the list above, you'd be hard-pressed to say it's anything special. Still, testing confirmed that the deck stacked up well against Goblins, still the biggest threat at the time given that Affinity hadn't found Arcbound Ravager in a pile of darksteel yet. And Slide had little to no chance at defeating Blow 2.0, despite playing a deadly nuke against tokens in its namesake enchantment and Wind Shards backup against a Zombie horde. Nova Cleric was actually just that relevant, and you had 6 virtual copies with the Doomed Necromancers.

The list isn't perfect, but versions of it did end up performing reasonably well. A perfect example of the Blow deck took down Champs the year before I riffed on it in the article on StarCityGames.

3 City of Brass
11 Plains
1 Starlit Sanctum
2 Swamp

4 Beloved Bodyguard
4 Beloved Chaplain
4 Devoted Caretaker
4 Master Apothecary
4 Nova Cleric
4 Rotlung Reanimator
4 Weathered Wayfarer

3 Disenchant
4 Prismatic Strands
4 Shared Triump
4 Wrath of God

Sideboard:

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Oversold Cemetary
3 Ray of Revelation
4 Spurnmage Advocate
2 Worship

Holy Jesus, those were dark times for mana bases. Pray they never return. But Weathered Wayfarer made it work, eking out card advantage slower than a Jayemdae Tome, grinding the whole game to four mana, however long it took. 

Tribal decks are automatically fun to play, and this one has the added benefit of blowing up your own creatures for profit to go along with a cartload of synergy. 

Which brings us back to the new decklist and the current standard format. Esper Humans is, to be fair, not entirely in the full aggro lite-control mode that Blow was. But it provides a hell of a blueprint for building something that goes ham on the concept. Here's my take:

4 Godless Shrine

4 Hallowed Fountain

4 Watery Grave

4 Plains

3 Temple of Deceit

2 Temple of Enlightenment

2 Temple of Silence

2 Mutavault

25 Lands

That's right, another three-color deck that runs two colorless lands without a hitch. Praise based Ravnica.

Next we need our amped-up aggro package:

4 Imposing Sovereign

4 Lyev Skyknight

4 Deputy of Acquittals

1 Sin Collector

3 Precinct Captain

1 Obzedat, Ghost Council

4 Soldier of the Pantheon

4 Xanthrid Necromancer

2 Ephara, God of the Polis

27 Creatures

The game plan revolves around playing 187 creatures and running them headfirst into the opposition or wiping them away and replacing them with shambling mobs of undead. On the play, Imposing Sovereign is a virtual Time Walk, ensuring you'll always be a turn ahead even if they match you creature for creature. Skyknight, Obzedat and Sin Collector all offer extra value with Ephara in play, and Deputy of Acquittals can trigger the card-drawing celestial force during your own upkeep while guaranteeing you'll get another draw on your opponent's turn. You can tell from the creatures that this version always wants two untapped lands on turn two, which goes to explain the less-than-full-pack of Temples.

Your best start against most decks that flood the board with creatures is Soldier into Sovereign into Necromancer into Supreme Verdict. You'll have dealt eight and wiped the board, leaving you with 3 2/2s and a card to whatever they've managed to hold back defending against a perfect curve.

2 Detention Sphere

4 Supreme Verdict

1 Whip of Erebos

1 Spear of Heliod

8 Spells

Nothing too exciting here. Spear can really push an aggressive start over the top, and the Whip helps you stabilize or counterattack, especially post-Verdict. The Spheres are catch-alls that also make the unlikely possibility of an Ephara attack enter the realm of this-could-actually-happen.

Sideboard:

1 Sin Collector

3 Bile Blight

1 Hero's Downfall

1 Ultimate Price

1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

2 Thoughtseize

2 Detention Sphere

The sideboarding plan revolves around situations where your first and second onslaughts are being repelled by a control deck that can't handle grinding card advantage with Obzedat and Ephara. There's a smattering of removal suitable against rats and tokens, plus options against more monstrous threats. Whatever your needs are after board, you'll be taking out the Deputies, one or two Verdicts, the Spear, possibly the Sovereigns.

The two basic substitutions are

Against tokens or Pack Rat-style aggression:

-3 Deputy of Acquittal

-1 Spear of Heliod

-2 Ephara, God of the Polis

-1 Sin Collector

-1 Soldier of the Pantheon (on the draw)

+3 Bile Blight

+1 Hero's Downfall

+1 Ultimate Price

+2 Detention Sphere

+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa (on the draw)

Against control you need to grind away:

-2 Supreme Verdict

-4 Imposing Sovereign

+1 Sin Collector

+2 Thoughtseize

+1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

+2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

If you liked this roundabout trip to a new decklist, let me know. If you didn't, well, hopefully there was still something in this for you (or I'm sorry you read all the way to the end of an article you hated). 

Tip of the Day #4: "Playing Around 'It'"

Players serious about developing their game eventually become obsessed with "Jedi mind tricks", bluffs, and representation on both their side of the table and their opponent's.  What I want to address is the minor fact that for every Mike Long combo-ing off without a win condition, or Zach Hall foiling Mike Flores' dastardly plans with a well-timed "#showme", there are hundreds of thousands of examples of completely ineffective angle shots.

Being able to rationally determine the likelihood of a specific card in your opponent's hand is a valuable tool.  But I prefer the golf bag analogy.  When it comes to our game, you have many different skills and abilities that you need to develop.  Understanding card advantage, proper role identification, card evaluation, and careful attention are all clubs in your golf bag.  The point of the game of golf, though, is not to use every club on every hole.  You want to get there in as few strokes as possible, which isn't going to happen if you spend time trying to convince yourself a flop shot over a towering pine tree with your new lob wedge is the right play.

In Magic, you will encounter many situations where your opponent could ostensibly have something in their hand which will affect your board position or plays.  In fact, those situations come about literally every turn.  


I used to enormously enjoy the old Magic Academy and The Play's the Thing series and other articles that focused on the same sorts of things.  When someone whose opinion I respect very highly is explaining that playing a Razorverge Thicket instead of a Forest before casting Llanowar Elves is just like taking a baby cat outside and kicking it against an electric fence because you want them to believe you do not have access to white, I try very hard to pay attention, but, ultimately, not every play on every turn is as crucial as you want to believe it is.

To summarize my occasionally incoherent thoughts on this subject, I'll say that I very rarely play around Rebuke in DII drafts.  If my opponent has it, it isn't going any where.  Whether I attack this turn or six turns from now, I'm going to lose a guy to it.  If it's early in the game, I can be fairly certain that whatever I'm attacking with is going to be worth less than the better cards I'll have access to later.

In conclusion, the pro tip of the day that I'm referring to is "In the early game, play as though they don't have it, and in the late game, play as though they do."  I'm merely adding that in most actual situations, it doesn't matter either way.

Dropping the Banhammer, Part One: Under Hot Lights

There has been a trickle-down effect since the announcement that #twoexplores is no longer a valid excuse for rampant cheating.  The most noticeable is the intensity of the community's vigilance when it comes to policing high level play on camera. 

I try to add something to the discussions that take place away from the tech and video media centers of the Magic universe online.  With that in mind, here are five things that you will do on camera at some point if you attend enough events, along with what might happen when you do.

History Lesson #1: AA-Gun from Minnesota Champs 2005

Let’s take a walk down memory lane with the first in a blog/column where I’ll be talking about successful decks I’ve designed in the past, the lessons I learned from those designs, and how you can incorporate my strategies into your own tinkering and brewing sessions. 

Here is the decklist:

AA-Gun

4 Molder Slug

4 Eternal Witness

4 Viridian Shaman

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

4 Viridian Zealot

4 Magma Jet

4 Oxidize

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

4 Tel-Jilad Justice

2 Deconstruct

1 Echoing Ruin

1 Creeping Mold

1Tendo Ice Bridge

4 Shivan Oasis

9 Forest

6 Mountain

Sideboard:

3 Plow Under

3 Arc-Slogger

1 Rude Awakening

1 Kodama of the North Tree

3 Kodama’s Reach

4 Pyroclasm