I’m back from another weekend of coverage; this time I was in the booth for Grand Prix Baltimore. If you still haven’t watched any of it, the archives are up on ggslive.com. If you’re a fan of watching great players play Magic, you’ll appreciate nearly every match that we had on camera. From Owen Turtenwald’s moving into Snapcaster Mage beatdown mode to Jackie Lee path to the Top 4 being littered with the corpses of U/B Control Decks to the unbelievable play of both players in the finals, it was some Magic at its finest.
I was particularly happy with my broadcasting partner, Steve Sadin, former editor of This Here Site. Steve, a Pro Tour veteran, knows the game at a level most of us don’t, and he was fantastic in his analysis of both the format and play situations. I thought we made a powerful team along with Nate Price (doer of everything and more) and the always-amazing Rashad Miller. We ran some great player interviews and even had Brian Kibler sit in for Steve for a round to add his expert commentary to the play lines. I’ll be back on GGsLive for Grand Prix Indianapolis with none other than Rich Hagon, so I hope you’ll tune in for more action.
A brief aside about Baltimore:Â it’s a food town. Dinner in Little Italy, crab cakes from Gunning’s, corned beef from Lenny’s, and a world-class meal at Cindy Wolf’s Charleston Restaurant completed an outstanding weekend of dining. The only places I regret not getting to are Hunan Manor (which is out in Columbia, closer to the airport) and the Owl Bar. Next time, I guess. If you have cause to be in Charm City, indulge yourself in the eats.
Toby Elliott is a Level 5 Judge (having just Head Judged Pro Tour Dark Ascension), Rules Committee member, and EDH super-fan. He’s a Timmy of the first degree. I swear to you he giggles all the time when playing the game. His Timmyness is demonstrated by the fact that he believes that decks should be required to run Acorn Harvest. Toby is also a completionist, having an insane collection of sealed boxes of product going back to The Dark, and he just recently finished his collection of all the foil sets.
He has a number of decks, but Ghost Council is the first one I ever remember him playing. It’s a dedicated control deck, and the thing I find most interesting is that there are no instants. None. And no artifacts. Who doesn’t play artifacts? It does have nearly every white and black sweeper printed, and it’s intended to slow the creature rush and eventually kill with one of the fatties or the Ghost Council drain. It’s actually been a while since I’ve played against this deck, so my memory of its performance is a little sketchy.
You’ll also note no Tutors of any kind. This Mindlock Orb Commander philosophy is one Toby is quite adamant about. He’d never support banning Tutoring in the format (mostly because it would be a logistical nightmare), but he’s a fan of playing that way. I would certainly build no-Tutor decks if I were playing with a group that all agreed on it.
Other than activating Ghost Council, there’s not much for Toby to do during other players’ turns. I’m not sure if that’s because he’s worried that his attention will drift or that he just wants to have extra time to socialize.
Creatures (15)
Academy Rector:Â I see people playing Academy Rector with only five enchantments or so, so it’s good to see Toby playing with a full thirteen enchantments to choose from. There’s no Riftsweeper, so he’s one and done.
Angel of Despair:Â Sometimes a brother gotta get got. Angel of Despair will always be there.
Archon of Justice:Â As mentioned last week, I’m on a bit of an Exile kick, so I’m really appreciating the Archon. I think it’s an underplayed card.
Avatar of Woe:Â When the creatures-in-graveyards count starts, everyone knows it’s Joey Lawrence.
Deathless Angel:Â Especially late in the game, when mana is plentiful, Deathless Angel can be a house. Since the deck is built to make long games, I can only assume this will come to bear occasionally.
Divinity of Pride:Â As close to an auto-include creature as there is in black/white.
Eternal Dragon:Â I’m a little ambivalent about Eternal Dragon. Sure, he land cycles early, which this deck probably needs, but it seems a little spendy to get real value.
Faerie Macabre:Â Graveyard hate is a necessity in the format, and this seems a little techy. It’s certainly one of the few things (unlike Relic of Progenitus or Tormod’s Crypt) that you don’t see coming.
Havoc Demon:Â More removal disguised as a big flyer, Havoc Demon takes out some of those annoying indestructible creatures.
Magus of the Disk:Â Note that there are also no artifacts as well as instants, so the Magus fills that role.
Massacre Wurm:Â One half of some pretty epic plays, the other half being all those dudes you just cheated into play.
Mortivore:Â When you’re killing other people’s creatures, Mortivore is a pretty good choice to run, especially since he regenerates.
Twisted Abomination:Â I imagine this card is here to be Eternal Dragon’s counterpart.
Withered Wretch:Â There are few better cards than this Zombie for graveyard control. You don’t need to remove everything, just the stuff that will come back to bite you.
World Queller:Â I’ve played this on and off, and I’m pretty disillusioned with it. It seems like it had so much promise to be a card that can be played cleverly. In this deck, we know that Toby can at least always say artifact and not hurt himself.
Legendary Creatures (7)
Akroma, Angel of Wrath:Â It’s amusing to me that the white Akroma is angrier than the red one.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite:Â Of course, Toby probably wants to live the dream of Elesh Norn/Storm Herd.
Kagemaro, First to Suffer: It’s not just the 24 sorceries that blow up creatures, it’s Kagemaro—although with a sort of weak card draw suite, I’m not convinced this is a great choice.
Myojin of Cleansing Fire:Â Wrath of God. On a stick.
Sheoldred, Whispering One:Â One of Toby’s few nods to recursion, Sheoldred seems scarier than she actually is, unless you’re set up to abuse her.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre:Â I’m not sure how something that nukes stuff is named for a circle. Seems like when Ulamog shows up, the circle is broken.
Visara the Dreadful:Â Here Toby shows his old-school roots.
Enchantments (13)
Aura of Silence:Â This card feels like it’s more about slowing down artifacts, which can get kind of out of hand, than it does with enchantments. It makes me wonder why some folks (obviously not in this deck) don’t run Presence of the Master.
Bitterblossom:Â This might be here just to show off that he has the Judge foil, but I suppose it goes okay with the general.
Debtors’ Knell:Â Another card that works nicely with the destruction of other peoples’ dudes, Debtors’ Knell has the survival rate of a mayfly and justly so. Just a few turns with it in can really get out of hand. I love it since it’s a “do something without costing me anything” card.
Grave Pact:Â Just in case you thought there wasn’t quite enough creature control…
Karmic Justice:Â There is a price for blowing up my (non-creature) stuff, and it’s your stuff.
Land Tax:Â I’m not sure that this is going to net him too many lands early game (without being willing to discard stuff) since he doesn’t have too many early drops. The turn 1 time you don’t want to see this is if you just won the die roll.
Luminarch Ascension:Â People panic when this comes down early and it can get out of control, but I think the panic is mostly disproportionate to the card’s actual value. This deck, which aims to take little damage (at least from creatures), is a good fit.
Martyr’s Bond:Â Love seeing this card…when I’m playing it. Otherwise, I would risk Karmic Justice to blow it up.
Mobilization:Â The slow roll plan. Really slow.
No Mercy:Â One mana cheaper than I originally thought it was, it seems like more killing of creatures, although it also seems like overkill since it’s not going to kill anything that wouldn’t already die to all the other destruction.
Phyrexian Arena:Â It’s the three-drop you want to see on turn 3.
Sacred Mesa:Â You know without even scrolling down that there’s a Storm Herd in the sorcery section.
Sigil of the Empty Throne:Â I get that Toby likes to have 4/4 Angels, and I suppose that it will create enough of them to warrant its cost.
Sorceries (24)
Akroma’s Vengeance:Â Akroma: angry for more than a decade.
Austere Command:Â I’d call this a must-have over Wrath of God, since it gives you lots of flexibility.
Black Sun’s Zenith:Â When you’re dedicated to killing creatures, you have to be able to kill all kinds of them.
Damnation:Â Starting to roll my eyes at “kills all the dudes.”
Day of Judgment:Â If Toby’s not playing the stylin’ Player Rewards one, I’ll be upset.
Decree of Justice:Â I suppose this could otherwise be considered one of the deck’s instants, but I don’t count out the possibility that Toby holds onto this until the late game just so he can make Angels.
Decree of Pain:Â Can’t easily be countered when it’s cycled.
Demonic Tutor:Â For sure this is the spicy Judge foil.
Dregs of Sorrow:Â Back in the day, we just called this “X4B.” You can actually get this in foil if you want, since it was in 7th Edition. Note that you’ll still all draw the cards until all of the targets become illegal (thereby countering the spell). The draw isn’t contingent on the number of creatures destroyed, just the value of X.
Evangelize:Â When people can only have in play one creature at a time (due to your incessant board wiping), this gets lots better.
Final Judgment:Â Back to the exiling; I’d probably pay one or two more mana to cast this.
Hallowed Burial:Â Alternate means of dealing with problem creatures or generals are good, since there are a few of them that you can’t blow up. Obviously pretty spicy against a recursion deck.
Kirtar’s Wrath: Â I highly doubt that the two Spirits mean a great deal and that this one is here for completion’s sake.
Martial Coup:Â The tokens for Martial Coup, however, can really matter.
Mass Calcify:Â It’s not like he has that many creatures to keep around. More being a completionist, I think.
Phyrexian Rebirth:Â Note that the horror you get is colorless, which means it gets intimidated pretty easily.
Plague Wind:Â This being the format of nine-mana sorceries, Plague Wind has a home. I wonder if it’s ever gotten cast in any other Constructed format.
Planar Cleansing:Â There are reset buttons and then there are reset buttons.
Replenish:Â This is the second card (Sigil of the Empty Throne being the other) that I’d expect to see in an enchantment-focused deck, which this is certainly not.
Storm Herd:Â There should be one of those “Here’s To You” beer commercials for Storm Herd. “Here’s to you, dollar rare. You sit in everyone’s trade binder, getting ignored. But when it’s your time to shine…”
Syphon Flesh:Â A kind of left-fieldish card in this deck, but again, when you’re constantly blowing up things, it’s kind of likely that the only creature everyone has in play is a really good one.
Syphon Mind:Â I almost never mind being on the receiving end of Syphon Mind since I get to choose, and I thank the caster for helping me put something in the graveyard to reanimate.
Vindicate:Â We’ve talked before about how I’m not a fan of one-for-one removal in the format, but if you’re going to do it with any of them, it might as well be this one.
Wrath of God:Â Funny how something that destroys all creatures is the genesis of the nomenclature for a family of effects.
Planeswalkers (2)
Karn Liberated:Â If we’re ever going to see Karn’s ultimate go off, this is the kind of deck where we’ll see it.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad:Â I think this card is just in the deck so that he can say, “Yeah, I’ve ultimated Sorin a bunch of times.” There’s quite some debate over whether or not this card is good in the format, and I’m of the opinion that while it’s not the best planeswalker out there, it’s still well worth playing.
Lands (19)
Barren Moor
Command Tower
Drifting Meadow
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Fetid Heath
Godless Shrine
Isolated Chapel
Kjeldoran Outpost
Marsh Flats
Mistveil Plains
Orzhov Basilica
Polluted Mire
Reliquary Tower
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Secluded Steppe
Tainted Field
Temple of the False God
Thawing Glaciers
Vault of the Archangel
Legendary Lands (3)
Kor Haven
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Volrath’s Stronghold
Basic Lands (16)
In the Other People’s Decks feature, I truly hope to bring you an outside-the-box view of the format and the way that other EDH fans Embrace the Chaos. (Speaking of which, did you see “The Big Bang Theory” episode recently where Sheldon uses the phrase? Awesome.) Toby’s deck is reasonably powered for play in a great social environment, set up for both good strategic and powerfully epic plays, which is exactly what I hope for out of the format.