When I first started this column and was still totally optimistic about not only committing to playing a different deck every Friday night, but life in general, I was a fountain of article ideas. One of my better ideas was to analyze formats by how much each set was used within that Standard. The data wouldn’t really do much for those looking for top-tier strategy, but it would certainly show what sets were hits and which were misses . . . in hindsight at least.
Anyone with a brain and an IQ above room temperature could surmise that a block like Scars of Mirrodin would probably be low-impact in a Standard format. There are three reasons for this:
1. It’s artifact-intensive. Most of the cards within the block care a lot about artifacts. If you’re building a deck that doesn’t care about artifacts, odds are, you’re not going to need to include a lot of cards from Scars block. A block like Scars block also has the occupational hazard of having a lot of cards that, because they don’t interact with artifacts, are just bad.
2. History repeats itself. Clear back in 2004, during the original Mirrodin block’s reign in Standard, there was one deck you could play. That was Affinity, which would’ve made more sense if it were called Modular—because the deck shined with an Arcbound Ravager in play, which allowed for very explosive kills, either with Cranial Plating or Disciple of the Vault. In the weeks before the release of Saviors of Kamigawa and Kataki, War's Wage, the biggest sweep of bannings since Urza’s block was seen; Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, and all the artifact lands were banned. After this, though, Standard players got a few months of Standard without Affinity, and even though Kamigawa block has since been universally hailed as one of the worst blocks of all time, the cards, along with the cards of Eighth and Ninth edition, made up the backbone of all the Standard decks of that era—save for Tooth and Nail, and that deck used mostly green cards from Kamigawa block and wasn’t even powered by Cloudposts. It used the Urza’s lands (Mine, Tower, and Power Plant) from the base sets.
3. No one wants history to repeat itself. The first time we had an artifact-centric block (Urza’s block), there were massive bannings. The second time we had an artifact-centric block (Mirrodin block), there were massive bannings. Not wanting to make the same costly mistake a third time, WotC clearly took special precautions (made every card bad) within Scars block. Sure, you could point to Batterskull and gleefully say, “THEY STILL FUCKED UP,” but it stands to reason that nothing in Scars block is close to as egregious as, say, Skullclamp.
Zendikar block, Scars block, M11, and M12 were the legal sets for the first seven weeks of 52 FNMs. Let’s see exactly how bad Scars block was in that time.
That’s a graph of expansion-usage percentages in those seven weeks. I took the cards I used every week, pieced out what expansion they were from, and added up the totals from every expansion. If a card appeared in both M11 and M12, I gave it to M12. They’re not nearly as bad as expected! Anyone could’ve foreseen a massive spike in New Phyrexia’s usage thanks to Phyrexian mana and overall superior card quality, but the numbers actually show that Scars of Mirrodin and New Phyrexia experienced a higher usage in those seven weeks than Zendikar, Worldwake, or Rise of the Eldrazi (the last of which was actually the least used set of them all).
The pictured graph shows the usage of Scars of Mirrodin by week. Notice the crazy jumps in weeks four and six? In week four, I played Tempered Steel, and in week six, I played a silly homebrew based around Liquimetal Coating and a lot of artifact removal. The Tempered Steel deck is very linear and relies mostly on artifacts. In case you forgot the list I ran, it’s here:
"Tempered Steel"
- Creatures (27)
- 4 Glint Hawk
- 3 Porcelain Legionnaire
- 4 Memnite
- 4 Ornithopter
- 4 Signal Pest
- 4 Steel Overseer
- 4 Vault Skirge
- Spells (15)
- 4 Dispatch
- 4 Tempered Steel
- 3 Glint Hawk Idol
- 4 Mox Opal
- Lands (18)
- 11 Plains
- 3 Contested War Zone
- 4 Inkmoth Nexus
- Sideboard (15)
- 4 Kor Firewalker
- 3 Spellskite
- 2 Refraction Trap
- 4 Shrine of Loyal Legions
- 2 Plains
As you can see, the deck is rich with Scars-block cards; the six Zendikar-block cards in the seventy-five are all from Worldwake, and they’re all in the sideboard. One could make the case that the Scars-block numbers have been artificially inflated by this deck and that the Zendikar-block numbers were deflated by the presence of the M12 event deck, which featured zero cards from the block.
This is where the numbers don’t lie: Mirrodin Besieged sucks. In usage percentage, Mirrodin Besieged is the second-worst, besting only Rise of the Eldrazi, a set in which a fair number of the mythics suffer from costing a fuckton of mana. In week three, I played a grand total of zero cards from Mirrodin Besieged. It’s understandable to have zero Zendikar and Rise of the Eldrazi cards when you’re playing something super-linear like Tempered Steel, but when you’re playing a base-blue combo deck, there should be something in each set for you, even if it is some random sideboard card.
By the way, the most used card in those seven weeks that wasn’t a basic land was Preordain—at sixteen uses. That card is fucking good.
I played R/G Beatz last Friday:
"R/G Beatz"
- Creatures (24)
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 1 Daybreak Ranger
- 2 Hellrider
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
- 3 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- Planeswalkers (1)
- 1 Garruk Relentless
- Spells (12)
- 4 Galvanic Blast
- 4 Green Sun's Zenith
- 2 Sword of Feast and Famine
- 2 Sword of War and Peace
- Lands (23)
- 3 Mountain
- 8 Forest
- 1 Inkmoth Nexus
- 3 Kessig Wolf Run
- 4 Copperline Gorge
- 4 Rootbound Crag
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Ancient Grudge
- 2 Batterskull
- 1 Blasphemous Act
- 2 Combust
- 2 Dismember
- 2 Manabarbs
- 1 Naturalize
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 1 Tree of Redemption
- 1 Urabrask the Hidden
That’s Kristof Benaets’s third-place list; I used his list because it placed the highest of all the R/G decks in the GP: Lille Top 8.
Round 1 – Gino Vittore
Gino is wearing camo pants, a Jets hoodie, and some Fu Manchu–style facial hair. He’s an older guy playing a W/B tokens brew.
While we shuffle up for Game 1, he notes the effect of my orange sleeves against my blue Cloud City play mat: “Is that for the S.U. basketball team or what?”
“Eh, it could be basketball; it could be for the Mets . . . whatever you like. I just figured I’d always be using this mat for FNM, and the orange sleeves would look good with it.”
“Ah. I like to have my stuff match, too.” Gino’s rocking silver Dragon Shield sleeves on a play mat with the Fires of Undeath art on it. Game 1 is over in about four minutes. Gino mulls to six on the play and just plays a Plains, while I play a Birds of Paradise. On my second turn, I can either cast a Strangleroot Geist and another Birds of Paradise or just Sword of Feast and Famine. Since both scenarios end with me equipping on my third turn, I choose to advance my board and play the Strangleroot Geist and the second Birds of Paradise.
Even though it’s the Sword of Feast and Famine and not the Sword of War and Peace, Gino appears to have no answers to a sworded-up Strangleroot Geist . . . until I go to my attack phase, wherein he tries to cast Go for the Throat targeting my Strangleroot Geist. I remind him that Sword of Feast and Famine grants Strangleroot Geist pro-black, and he gets a little pissed at himself and just bins his Go for the Throat. I’m not sure what to do here, so I say, “Well . . . it’s an illegal target. You can just untap your lands and put it back in your hand. I’m still attacking, though.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll just discard this Go for the Throat to your Sword then,” said the guy who would eventually chop first prize with the only other 3–0.
The game doesn’t last much longer after that.
Games 2 and 3 are pretty much identical: I’ve got great early action, and Gino’s first two turns are “land, go.” However, his plays on turns three and four are Oblivion Rings successively, and all I have in their wake are a bunch of mana dorks that are quickly outmatched by his tokens and Intangible Virtues. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Elspeth Tirel also make things very difficult.
0–1
I don’t love the decks with a bunch of mana dorks in them. To me, it always feels like things really have to go your way in order for me to do well, and unfortunately for me last Friday, it just felt like I drew the Llanowar Elves half of my deck in far too many games.
Round 2 – Joshua Campbell
Josh is a very, very, very new player. Before the tournament started, he asked me if an Elite Inquisitor could block a Stromkirk Noble.
Nothing within the confines of the match of Magic we played happened that was very interesting; he was playing a mono-white deck, and I won in about ten minutes. There was some stuff going on that is worth mentioning, though.
Last Friday was the first time Josh had played in an actual Magic tournament, which was okay. I didn’t mind going slowly and explaining things to him. When I played a checklist card, he panicked a bit and went, “Wait, what’s going on?” because what I do with my checklist cards is blackout the entire card with acrylic marker except for the block with the name and casting cost of the card I’m representing. I’m not sure how he owned a play set of Elite Inquisitors and didn’t know what a checklist card was, but whatever.
What I did mind was his friend watching our entire match and making fun of Josh because I never finished a game under 20 life. (I’d go to 19 and play a Huntmaster of the Fells, whereupon the game would quickly end.) I didn’t say anything, though, because I didn’t wanna be that guy. Sometimes, you just don’t want to be the one to make someone feel uncomfortable because he doesn’t know the etiquette yet. Also, I knew that nothing short of Bruce Campbells raining down from the heavens with boomsticks and a vengeance is going to stop me from winning this match.
So, I ignore his friend.
1–1
Round 3 – Lao Gutierrez, or, Joshua Campbell’s Friend
Lao is playing a burn deck, but he’s too inexperienced to know to kill my mana guys. These two games are also very quick. For reasons unknown to me, it is very important to Lao that I end the game at 14 life, so during my alpha strikes in both games, he throws whatever burn he has in his hand at my face before dying. A lots of people do this. I genuinely don’t understand it. I am also very comfortable with not understanding it.
2–1
Round 4 – R.J. Fischer
R.J. is playing a weird Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas homebrew, complete with Contagion Clasps that just wreck me. I don’t remember much of this match other than drawing poorly (of course).
2–2
However, our third game was interesting.
I’m not sure what happened. Maybe I’d just been playing poorly all night and didn’t realize it, but R.J. won our third game with a Phyrexian Metamorph cloning a 5/5 Contagion Clasp. I couldn’t beat two 5/5s and was quickly demolished.
But wait!
The Contagion Clasp was made a 5/5 by a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. That much is clear. However, Phyrexian Metamorph doesn’t copy the fact that the Contagion Clasp is a 5/5, which Adam Blanden was kind enough to point out to me after hearing my recap of the game on our drive home.
I’d like to think I usually catch that stuff, but who knows? That tournament was a miserable night for me after losing Round 1. It was hard not getting mad after that. My heart wasn’t in any of the games after that, and I just didn’t like the deck I was playing. I’m certainly not above playing Forests and attacking with big creatures—it’s like I said, these decks with eight mana dorks really don’t appeal to me in any way.
By the time I arrived home that night, I had turned 23. My girlfriend was waiting up for me, and instead of getting a cake, she had bought a box of ice cream Snickers bars.
Because I don’t like cake.
Jon Corpora
Pronounced Ca-pora