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You Lika The Juice? Tasty Waves and a Cool Buzz

Friday, January 21st – There were a lot of neat ideas back then that were shelved due to the oppressive power of Jund… but Standard is a brand new world now. Might the dangerously powerful and handsome Rico Suave be able to thrive now?

Man, the avalanche of Mirrodin Besieged cards being previewed has me itching to talk about them — but I’m going to mostly refrain from that until most,
if not all, have been totally spoiled so as to better speak about them in context. Still, I might not be able to help myself, but mostly I’m here to
talk about a night and two formats.

Mirrodin Besieged Aside (that didn’t take long…)

A show of hands—how many of you saw this card, and had to do a double take at the name?

I know the first thing that my mind saw was this:

Priests of NOM!

Nuevo Suave & the Waves

Last Friday, I managed to make it up to Richmond Comix for their Friday Night Standard tournament. The week leading up to that had been gruelingly
busy, but I’d had a deck idea brewing in my head that I wanted to try, something different from the same old Aggro Deck — Jace Deck — Ramp Deck that’s
pretty much got Standard on competitive lockdown.

Early last year I worked on a deck that had some early promise, utilizing the high-risk, high-reward card Hellcarver Demon (which I wrote about here,
in ”

Throwing Spaghetti Monsters Against the Wall

“). Here was the deck, named after Hellcarver Demon’s art:


Here’s what I wrote about it back then:

“Hellcarver Demon is one scary card; when he connects, you’re pretty much going all-in with him and whatever non-land cards you find on the top of your
deck. Liliana Vess helps makes things a little less scary by making sure the top of your deck is exactly what you need. Ideally, Liliana puts an
Emrakul on top of your deck before you attack through clear skies with Hellcarver Demon; yes, you sacrifice all your other permanents and discard your
hand, but then you get to cast Emrakul, take its Time Walk ability, and cast three to five other cards.

“I won’t claim this deck is the greatest thing since sliced bread; initial testing has proven it very inconsistent against Jund, though the games where
you survive long enough to cast and attack with Rico Suave (Hellcarver Demon) are impressive enough that I want to figure out how to make it happen
more often – even swinging blind with no Liliana set-up, the advantage swing is usually game-ending. Last night I tried adding Green for Walls, Putrid
Leech, Maelstrom Pulse, and Momentous Fall, but that did not seem to help the deck with Jund, so right now I’m not sure which way to take the deck.”

There were a lot of neat ideas back then that were pretty well shelved due to the oppressive power of the Jund deck… but Standard is a brand new world
now. Might the dangerously powerful and handsome Rico Suave be able to thrive now?

We’ve got a lot more interesting tools available now, and it makes me wonder whether or not we should try another approach outside of casting crazy
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I started thinking about Vengevine — and if we play a bunch of creatures in the deck, when Rico Suave’s ability triggers, all
we’d need is to play two creatures to bring back any Vengevines in the graveyard. Between green and black, we’ve got quite a few options that can
circumvent Hellcarver Demon’s drawback — not only Vengevine, but Bloodghast, Mitotic Slime, Wurmcoil Engine… maybe Clone Shells, Viscera Seer… Mimic
Vat… there’s something here, I can feel it!

Unfortunately, Josh had our Vengevines and wasn’t able to make it to Richmond Comix Friday, and since Vengevines are of crucial importance, I decided
to put the deck on hold. Stay tuned — I plan on tinkering with this brew in the coming weeks and hopefully cook up something fun and at least
semi-competitive!

So, without a deck and the hours ticking down, I’m at work listening to the Eh Team podcast, guest-starring StarCityGames.com very own Patrick
Chapin. It’s a long, rambling good time covering a wide variety of topics, but one thing Chapin said really jumped out at me — he mentioned that famed
deck-brewer Brian Kowal had cooked up a monogreen Genesis Wave deck that included 53 mana sources and was totally insane. Fifty-three mana sources!! My imagination immediately latched onto that idea, that framework—somewhere between 24-25 lands, 27-28 other
permanents that produce mana, four Genesis Wave, and three “other” cards. I ponder the variety of possible configurations the rest of the afternoon,
and by the time I clocked out from work I ran out to my van and built this deck:


I figure all of green’s mana critters plus Eldrazi Monument plus Genesis Wave could equal Good Games!

I wanted to include three Garruk Wildspeakers into the maindeck, but I could find any of my copies, so hopefully Josh has them with him. I figure
Garruk would count as a mana source, and also provide some nice synergies — being able to untap any Oren-Riefs post-Wave and tap to add +1/+1 counters
would be nice, and then next turn providing the Overrun effect, presumably for the win.

The sideboard was hastily thrown together, but I wanted to make it all permanents to maximize the synergy with Genesis Wave. The Acidic Slimes and
Mindslaver were inspired by Conley Woods‘ recent Wave deck success at the StarCityGames.com Open, and Tumble
Magnets have just been great every time I’ve played them in Standard decks recently, buying time from early threats or tapping down later-game Titans.
The mini-Nissa package plays nicely with the maindeck Elf theme, and also feeds Eldrazi Monument. Gaea’s Revenge is the control crusher, and I figure
the Crystal Ball is a nice way to improve card selection.

We only had 8 players for Standard, so it was three rounds of Swiss with a cut to the top 2. I went 2-1, losing to a Black/Green poison deck in two
quick games. The first game was tough; I didn’t draw any Overgrown Battlements and certainly didn’t want to block and lose my early mana creatures, and
with no Wave showing up I gathered up my tenth poison counter and shuffled up for the next game.

Game two, I thought I had it made — I had a Genesis Wave, some mana creatures, and a Tumble Magnet. I played out the creatures and the Magnet to buy
time from the poison beatdown, and when I drew another Magnet I had even more time, setting things up where I could Genesis Wave for X=7 to hopefully
seal the game.

The turn before I was going to do, that my opponent cast Duress and destroyed me. I was totally blown away — I’d not played a single non-creature spell
in game 1 so I wasn’t expecting Duress at all. On my turn I drew a land, and soon am dead.

The deck does indeed do some sick things with Genesis Wave — I was casting ten- and twelve-mana Genesis Waves routinely, and one time actually Waved
for twenty-one mana after the first Wave didn’t “get there.” Another unusual thing was how often I was able to level up Joraga Treespeaker to its
highest level with all the extra mana floating around.

The next time I play this, will likely be the maindeck configuration:


While Nissa and her Chosen aren’t mana-producers, they do work great within the framework of the deck, and nicely complement Eldrazi Monument incase
you draw that potent artifact and don’t draw your Genesis Wave. In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the actual Brian Kowal decklist!

Unfortunately, my tie-breakers didn’t get me into the finals Friday night, but lucky me — I got the Friday Night Magic promo on the random giveaway. I
was quite stoked! The foil Everflowing Chalice was sweet, and something I definitely wanted to have to pimp out a Commander deck with.

Mirrodin Besieged Aside

I know we’re supposed to get the other three Swords to round out the set started in Mirrodin with Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and
Darkness. Scars of Mirrodin brought us Sword of Body and Mind, so that leaves Sword of [Red] and [White], and Sword of [Black] and [Green]. Only one of
the Orbs of Insight has the word Sword in it, and only once, so the final Sword is showing up in the last set.

The Sword shows up the Phyrexian Orb, which means it’s going to have a Mirran watermark, just like Sword of Body and Mind. Does that mean that all
three Swords are going to be Mirran? I had kinda thought that the Green and Black-themed Sword would end up being Phyrexian, but then I thought that,
when fighting against Phyrexians you’d want to have protection from black and green the most… so maybe that Sword would be the Mirran sword?

Then it was pointed out to me that for flavor reasons, all the Swords would be Mirran. Which then had me wonder — how would the Phyrexians answer those
potent Swords? Some sort of Duplicant-like Living Weapon that imprints other Equipment in play? That would be sick (pun intended)! Ah, the
possibilities…

Konda Kommander

With my Standard run over with, I was stoked to play some Commander! The first deck I pulled out was the Vorosh, the Hunter proliferate deck, but
unfortunately we all got combo killed on turn 5 by Chris Griffin’s vicious mono-red Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker deck.

He’s built pretty much the antithesis of what Sheldon and I advocate for the format, chock full of land destruction and combo-kills. Griff’s got casual
and fun Commander decks too, but he’s crafted a super-Spikey killer that he breaks out every once in a while for a quick game or to take down a
four-man Commander pod side event. I’ll see if I can get a decklist to share with you all, if you’re interested in such a beast.

Griff rolls out and we play again, and eventually I win with Vorosh. By the end of the game, I’m totally disenchanted with my deck. Really
abusing proliferate involves so much tedium that I was boring myself, and I can only imagine what the other players were thinking while I was adding
counters to a bunch of permanents, even though they both complimented me on the deck. It actually worked like a well-oiled machine, but I just found it
way too tedious for my tastes. If I play it more I’m sure I can roll through the proliferation faster, but right now I’m not overly excited about
playing it.

A bit discouraged, I decided to whip out another deck that I was really excited about, and it proved to be much more fun and just as potent, winning
the two games I played with it. I initially had the idea from the new crop of Darksteel indestructible cards from Scars of Mirrodin, which led me to
wonder — were there enough indestructible cards out there now to combine with global sweepers for some potent synergies? White offered up the most
global sweepers, and just so happened to have an indestructible Legend I could use as my general. Here’s what I put together:


One of the big problems with building around this theme is how high the mana cost is for most of the indestructible cards and global sweepers. Adding
in more mana acceleration helps, but I also decided to try out Arcbound creatures as well, and they worked great — get them out early on, and if
they’re still around later when you sweep the board, their counters can move to one of the indestructible dudes you hopefully have out there. Ajani
Goldmane played perfectly with this strategy. It worked out pretty well, as you can see from the picture:

Konda Commander

Whoo hoo — I got to rock the Kaldra token! Special thanks to Eric and Tiffany for making that for me.


Pro tip:


When all artifacts get returned to your hand with Reduce to Dreams, make sure you replay Shield of Kaldra first in your indestructible deck before you
play the other Kaldra pieces.

I ended the last game of the night in a particularly fun fashion, wouldn’t you agree?

Worldslaying Myr!

Yep, a Darksteel Myr with eight +1/+1 counters equipped with Worldslayer and attacking after I cast Wrath of God is pretty much a lock.
Indestructibility rules!

Mirrodin Besieged Aside

Speaking of indestructible, have you seen this guy?!


Imma be, Imma be – Imma imma Imma be

Imma be, Imma be – Imma imma Imma be

Imma be on the next level

Imma be Commander’s very next devil

Imma be laughing as you wonder what to do

Imma be handing out the poison bux to you

Don’t forget my name it’s the B.S.C.

If you got the mana you can play with me

For fans of Commander who’ve just gotten out from under the oppressive heel of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and breathed a sigh of relief, now we’ve got a
new tyrant to worry about. Blightsteel Colossus will generally kill someone in one hit, and with trample and numerous ways to pump him the odds are
pretty good you’re gonna suck up ten poison counters in a single swing.

My initial gut reaction is that this guy isn’t nearly as bad as Emrakul. He’s bad, and I’m sure I’m gonna lose to him plenty of times, but I’m not
ready to pull Chicken Little on him just yet. I will concede it’s gonna be a pain to have to dedicate deck slots for anti-BSC measures.

Adorable Alert!

By the way, in case you haven’t run across the Perilous Myr plushy, check it out here. Sadly, there is
just the homemade one and not a whole line you can order, but it got me wondering why we don’t have plushy Magic characters available?

I posed the question on Twitter, and mikelinnemann replied “Not a strong enough market for plush…not enough female players. Sorry, man.” Considering
that I was wanting a plushy Perilous Myr my own self, I was a tad embarrassed.

Still, Magic’s been around for seventeen years now — aren’t there enough Magic players with young children who’d be willing to buy the plushies (for
their kids of course)? The cute Magic characters from Lotus Cobra Is Evil would make perfect
plushies!

Speaking of Lotus Cobra Is Evil, the new “battle of the bands” storyline is awesome!

That’s it for this week. So what Mirrodin Besieged cards are you excited to try in Commander?

Take care,

Bennie
starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com
Make sure to follow my Twitter feed http://twitter.com/blairwitchgreen, I check it often so feel free
to send me feedback, ideas, and random thoughts on Magic and life.

New to EDH? Be sure to check out myEDH Primer, part 1,part 2, and part 3.


My current EDH decks:


Savra, Queen of the Golgari (Demons)

Vorosh, the Hunter (proliferaTION)

Uril the Miststalker (my “more competitive” deck)

Konda, Lord of Eiganjo (The Indestructibles)