Today let's start with a little Quiz.

Question #1 - It's game two. You just lost a tight one. The cards you saw from your opponent were as follows: Plains, Mountain, Arid Mesa, Day of Judgment, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Oblivion Ring, and an Ajani Vengeant.

Your deck list is John Dean's list that won the Florida National Qualifier.

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

2 Borderland Ranger

4 Plated Geopede

4 Putrid Leach

4 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Sprouting Thrinax

2 Bituminous Blast

2 Lightning Bolt

4 Blightning

4 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Forest

3 Mountain

3 Swamp

2 Evolving Wilds

4 Raging Ravine

4 Savage Lands

1 Scalding Tarn

2 Terramorphic Expanse

4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard

4 Dragon's Claw

4 Sedraxis Specter

1 Bituminous Blast

3 Doom Blade

2 Lightning Bolt

1 Island[/cardlist]

You chose to play first in game two. What do you sideboard in and out?

Question #2 – This time you won game one due to a Bloodbraid Cascade to a Blightning and saw the following two cards discarded as well. Scalding Tarn and a second Elspeth. So this time you are on the draw for game two. What do you sideboard? Does play or draw make a difference?

Question #3 – You lost game one in a lopsided game. While you were stuck at 3 lands for multiple turns your opponent cast the following: Arid Mesa, Teetering Peaks (??), Plains, Scalding Tarn, Mountain, Ajani Vengeant, and Chandra Nalaar.

Your list is Seth Aesoph's, the South Dakota winner.

[cardlist]3 Sea Gate Oracle

4 Wall of Omens

4 Oblivion Ring

4 Spreading Seas

3 Path to Exile

3 Ajani Vengeant

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

3 Gideon Jura

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

2 Day of Judgment

2 Martial Coup

4 island

1 Mountain

5 Plains

3 Arid Mesa

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

3 Scalding Tarn

2 Tectonic Edge

Sideboard

3 Meddling Mage

2 Wall of Denial

2 Celestial Purge

3 Flashfreeze

4 Negate

1 Day of Judgment[/cardlist]

I personally like this deck and feel for you. Losing to a bad mana situation is rough. Especially since you were just getting back into it when his Ajani went Ultimate. The question still remains. What do you board in and out? With this deck you have an additional question. Do you play or draw?

Question #4

Your list is the Kansas winner played by Nicholas Berry

[cardlist]4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Rhox War Monk

4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara

2 Elspeth, Knight-errant

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

2 Eldrazi Conscription

5 Forest

2 Island

2 Plains

1 Arid Mesa

4 Celestial Colonade

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Sejiri Steppe

2 Stirring Wildwood

3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard

2 Pithing Needle

4 Dauntless Escort

4 Negate

3 Path to Exile

2 Gideon Jura[/cardlist]

In game one you had Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, Lotus Cobra, Sovereign, Forest, Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs. Pretty good but you lost the die roll. Seeing the brass ring of a 13/12 attacking on turn 3 you go for it only to have your opponent play a Volcanic Fallout in response to your Sovereign coming into play. At the time you think "This guy's an idiot he should have waited until I declare attackers and then put the Fallout on the stack." But two turns later when you draw the now dead Conscription card you realize that was his plan. Your Sovereign gets Pathed. Your Slayer runs into Chandra Nalaar and then Journey to Nowhere, Path to Exile, and Oblivion Ring answer your Sovereign, Knight, and Jace. Your Elspeth gets Elspethed and you finally lose to the 1-2 punch of an Ultimate Chandra and an attacking Gideon.

You're really on tilt about this game and dig into your sideboard. For what? That is the question. Please give both what in and what out.

The Internet Problem

Now we run into a problem with this Internet quiz. I, as the author, could proceed to write about something else and make you read next week to find the answers but that isn't really the point of this exercise. Or I can reveal the answer right now but then most of you have read the answer before you gave the question any thought.

So I'm going to go off topic for a little while. (I'm pretty good at that anyway.) It'll give you some scroll space so you can think about your answers before I show them to you.

Warp World Wins

A few weeks ago I brought you three different choices for a Warp World deck and let you choose which one I would run at my next FNM. While I still believe that Warp Seas is the best choice for true competitive play the infinite Warp combo deck now titled "Spawnies World" was the fan choice.

I am proud to announce that it won that Friday Night. I was lucky in some of my pairings though.

Round 1

The first round I drew a newer player. Really, he was just learning the game. As a teacher I know this was not the best situation to run into on your first round at your first FNM. Warp World is not a card for beginners. His deck was a Kor/Equipment deck that didn't seem half bad. It was lacking Stoneforge Mystic and Basilisk Collar that would really help make the deck work. The interesting thing about his deck was that it had a perfect 1.0 Warp Ratio. When I started going infinite he had 10 permanents. Three Warps later and he still had 10 permanents. That's right not a single instant or sorcery in the deck. Then I finally Warp up a Magmaw and killed his dudes putting him to 7. Warp again, kill more dudes, etc. I didn't sideboard for game two since I really didn't feel I needed anything. He knocks me down to 8 or so before I start using Spawns as chumps. Finally I draw a Warp with like 14 perms. He scoops after I show that I have Mnemonic in hand. I really think he scooped because everyone was watching and we were the last game going.

Round 2

This deck was another Rogue creation. It was based on life gain. Looking to win with Felidar Sovereign and running with a full collection of Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant. The coolest thing about this match up was the crazy life he gained off of my Spawn Swarm. At one point he was at 78 life with a Felidar in after my first Warp. My actual Warp showed no Walls and I had none in hand. He thought that he had won but I had two Cantrips from a Spreading Seas and an Elvish Visionary. You'll never guess what I drew. Miser. Wall. Once again I didn't change with my board. Game two went sideways for him as I hit a very early Warp and easily went infinite.

Round 3

Now I'm with the big boys and facing a Jund deck. Game one went way south. Missed land drops on turn four through six and never got to resolve a Warp. Game two seemed better as I hit 2 Spreading Seas and multiple Spawns to chump with. The game lasted plenty long but with no Warp found even through like 7 Cantrips. Just goes to show that no percentage in Magic can be 100%. Master of the Wild Hunt is a token punisher and I'm eventually killed by a whole Wolf pack. Looked like a trailer for Twilight Eclipse. I realize that I should have unleashed my Sideboard plan but just didn't. After the game my opponent says something about wishing he would have hit a Pulse for my tokens. I then explain how I just sac the one he targets and Pulse is countered by the rules of the game. That turns out to be critical.

Semi-finals

I squeak in the finals to face a Valakut deck. Game one I get to Warp the hard way. All of my tokens had been board wiped twice before I could get there with triple red. On the first Warp he hits double Seige-Gangs and the second gets 6 mountains and 2 Valakuts. 36 damage from my own spell. This time I do sideboard. In game two I Spread each of his Valakuts to Islands and my tokens live long enough for a Coat of Arms alpha strike. Game three I get to play a turn 3 Awakening Zone, turn 4 Eldrazi Monument, Turn 5 Emrakul's Hatcher.

Finals

Now I am playing the Jund list I played earlier. Game one goes his way. Without a Cobra staying alive I am unable to accel into the Warp in hand and he finishes me with a Sarkhan the Mad changing a Thrinax and its token into a couple of dragons which fly over my little Spawns that were more than willing to die for me.

Game two and three are almost exact copies of each other. I Spreading Seas a couple of lands but he is able to recover access to all three color pretty fast but not fast enough to stop an Eldrazi Monument/Awakening Zone from happening. He did board out his Pulse in game two expecting me to stay with Warp World and remembering our conversation from earlier. Without Pulse he has no answers to Monument or Zone. Game three does see a Monument killed by Pulse but it's not enough as I alpha with tons of tokens and a Coat of Arms. I was bit lucky since he was only 1 red mana away from using goblin tokens for the win. He was able to do 6 damage and hit me down to 1 life through a Siege-Gang. One more red source and it's his game. Turn 2 Spreading Seas your Savage Lands was such a good play.

For reference here is the list I played:

Spawnies World

[cardlist]4 Warp World

4 Mnemonic Wall

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Sea Gate Oracle

4 Spreading Seas

3 Elvish Visionary

4 Nest Invader

4 Kozilek's Predator

4 Emarakul's Hatcher

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Misty Rainforest

3 Terramorphic Expanse

3 Evolving Wilds

3 Island

4 Mountain

4 Forest

Sideboard

4 Eldrazi Monument

3 Coat of Arms

4 Awakening Zone

4 Ancient Stirrings[/cardlist]

Orthogonal

The idea here is the orthogonal sideboard. Orthogonal is a mathematical terms for a vector changing direction by 90 degrees. In other words you thought we were going North and then we quickly turned West. That is the idea with the above list. Going into game two you thought I was on Warp World Street and then surprise I go all indestructible Spawn tokens.

In a normal deck you have an average of 36 non land cards. With a full 15 change out you can retool almost 42% of your deck. That's a pretty radical shift. If you can find two gameplans that utilize the same color and can share a few cards you can surprise almost any opponent.

In my Warp/Monument deck above you should notice that the cantrip cards serve both combos well and that both combos depend on the Token generators as strong role players. That makes the orthogonal plan very workable. All I do is take out the core Warp Combo (- Warp, - Wall, - Cobra, - Visionary) and bring in the whole board. Now we are looking at a completely different deck. Game three becomes real interesting as your opponent tries to decide if he should form his deck around Warp World or Monument defense.

In order to keep your opponent off guard you should always look like you changing all 15 out. What I do is put all 15 cards in my deck between every game. Then I shuffle once and take 15 out. Sometimes it's the same 15 sometimes it's orthogonal.

Back to the Quiz

Did any of your answers account for the Orthogonal Sideboard? Did anyone think about what my opponent might be playing game two or did you only base your decision on what he played game one?

Let me show you the sideboard for the deck every question played against.

[cardlist]4 Steppe Lynx

4 Plated Geopede

3 Ranger of Eos

2 Devastating Summons

2 Goblin Bushwacker[/cardlist]

How many of your decks will be prepared for a Boros Bushwacker type of attack in game two? Or did you simply think of Super Pals that missed any Jace draws?

Now what would you answer? Is it any different than before? Post in the Comments section and let me know.

Class dismissed.