Eight-and-a-Half Tales By Nico Bohny

[Jason Salvano]

Very amusing article up on ChannelFireball right now: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/eight-and-a-half-tales/

I'm going to quote my favorite part below. I'm dying of laughter.

7: *Bye*
Team trio events were always a blast. I happily remember team events back in the days where you could choose your own team name. My favorite tournament was the one where we dressed up as the Chipmunks and had a radio with us to play the Chipmunk soundtrack whenever we would arrive at a table. Unfortunately, the tournament organizer confiscated the radio after round 1. It was also a good subgame to guess how old our opponents were after reading their team name and how good they were at Magic.

I remember a bigger tournament, I think it was a GP or PTQ back in the Onslaught block days, when a team registered with the name *Bye* . They actually won two rounds without playing since their opponents didn’t show up, thinking they had an actual bye and went out to eat something or take a break. After the tournament, the team was told not to use the name again. And soon after, Wizards stopped the whole team name thing. Maybe there were similar situations at other events.

[Tom H]

That is awesome :)

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[Richard Romanowski]

This person is my hero. At 2hg prereleases, I'd always ask our opponents their team name. And it was a great they'd always look at each other and try and come my up with something on the spot. At GP Providence, our opponents got a kick out of our Dollar tree pirate attire.

That is awesome :)

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[Jason Salvano]

Team names, the worst ban in the history of Magic.

[Mike Wall]

Agreed. Rip team screaming flying death.

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From: cam-...@googlegroups.com <cam-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jason Salvano <jasons...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 9:30:18 AM
To: Richard Romanowski
Cc: Tom H; Comics and More MtG group
Subject: Re: [CAM-magic] Eight-and-a-Half Tales By Nico Bohny

 

[Jason Salvano]

If only we were smart enough to use **Bye** first.

[Richard Romanowski]

Or 'Table 14' I haven't been keeping up on spoiler season. How's it looking? Actually, haven't been playing too much magic in general

[Jason Salvano]

I haven't looked at the set either, though I've been meaning to. I think it was fully spoiled the beginning of this past week. I'll probably play in a prerelease unless it looks really abysmal. 

[Tom H]

The one mechanic seems to be to end up with 10 permanents in play. (Ascend) and what little of it that I looked over seemed to have creatures that were a bit more able to block/able to be blocked, so I have some amount of hope that the games won't simply be, "I play a guy, attack with all, your turn." I haven't looked too closely at it yet though.

That is awesome :)

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[Sidney Blumenthal]

Agreed, looks like it slowed down a bit from XLN, so that’s good. Looks fun to me.

Sent from my iPhone

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[Evan Lennick]

THERE ARE DINOSAURS

[Tom H]

After seeing the full spoiler I'm going to change my initial impression slightly. There seem to be a *lot* of menace/flying/completely unblockable creatures in the set. I think that a blue-based flyers deck is still going to cause some issues for people who want to try to turtle up and cast their big bombs. A deck full of cheap menace creatures and combat tricks might be able to get off to a quick start, put the opponent on the back foot, and then use the combat tricks to get the win if the opponent stumbles at all. If the menace deck stumbles though - doesn't have a 2-drop for example, then it's probably in trouble.

I played one of the online preview events yesterday (HORRIBLE value, but I have no will power). I opened a pretty good pool. I was lacking removal, but all of my good cards were in the same colors - UG merfolk. I had Hadana's Climb (a mini Citadel Siege that can flip into a game-ender - easily first-pickable), Merfolk Mistbinder (the merfolk lord), 2x Jungleborn Pioneers (I think that these guys will be sleepers of the format), World Shaper (not great, but had its moment), Thrashing Brontodon (3/4 for 3 is just sick), Warkite Marauder (possible MVP), Crashing Tide, Deadeye Rig-Hauler, Kitesail Corsair, and Thundering Spineback.

I also had Kumena's Awakening, but didn't play it in the main deck. I'm pretty sure that was a mistake.

My first two rounds I was lucky enough to play against players who thought that the one-drop 1/1 unblockable merfolk with no enhancements were good cards. I pretty easily ran over them since me attacking for 5 per turn while they attacked for 2 per turn meant that the were quickly trying to figure out how to block with their 1/1s. One of them had a couple of the Jade Bearers, but once he got an unblockable guy up to a 3/3 I just bounced with with Deadeye Rig-Hauler. Match three I got out an early Hadana's Climb that dominated the first game and in game two I clogged up the ground with 3/3s and 3/4s while my flyers beat down. In match 3 I played against a BR deck that had a *ton* of removal. The board was quickly clogged up on the ground and we sat there staring at each other. I'd cast a flyer and he would cast a removal spell. Hadana's Climb ended up being in the last 7 or 8 cards of my deck. I had cast Secrets of the Golden City with the city's blessing, but he had cast a creature that rummaged or something, so I was still going to win if it came down to decking. Then he revealed Tetzimoc, Primal Death from his hand and started distributing counters. Despite having Lookout's Dispersal, he had so much mana that he was able to wipe more than half my board, cast the 6/6 deathtoucher, and pay the 4 mana. In two turns I was dead. What a broken card. I can't believe it's not even mythic. Game two he put out a turn five Charging Tuskodon, strapped on some Cobbled Wings, and I was dead in two turns. He had a pretty sweet deck.

It seems like, at least for sealed, that getting the city's blessing is going to be possible - at least in the right kind of decks. When you think about it, that's 6 lands, and 4 creatures/enchantments. As long as you're not trading off creatures you'll get there. If, on the other hand, you and the opponent are attacking back and forth and trading off guys then it might be a bit tougher. This is one reason that I think the Jungleborn Pioneers are going to be better than a lot of people will think. They give you two permanents, there's a lot of x/1 ground creatures that the token can trade with, having extra merfolk can be pretty relevant thanks to the creature type, and the 1/1 having hexproof is pretty relevant if you have a couple of ways to buff them up. I think that people who try to go bad 1-drop into One With the Wind are going to get "gotten" a lot more often thanks to both better removal and a lot of bounce, so I don't think that deck will be as playable as it was in straight up Ixalan.

Those are my initial thoughts anyway, based on *very* limited experience with only a single pool in sealed. I assume that draft will allow for some faster decks.

[Jason Salvano]

Thanks for the report. I really like the way that blue looks in this set, and though I don't necessarily expect to play much of the set, I'd hope to play blue in sealed or draft and see what aqueous tribe I end up in. 

Interesting to hear about ascend--the level 0 thinking is to look at all the upside, the level 1 thinking is to realize that it's improbable, and then the level 2 is to see how you can facilitate with tokens, treasure, etc. I'm interested in playing the ascend cards with average rates that upgrade to good/great, because while design does fail with some mechanics, more often than not, the support is there to make them work. 

Lastly, I love the design of Tetzimoc, but he's absolutely a blight on limited. Side in your coercions. 

That is awesome :)

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[Tom H]

I think that you're right with the Ascend - if the card isn't good on the front half then it's likely not worth playing. I think that a "mediocre" card will often be good though, especially with a high upside, because Ascend is going to be a little easier to reach than people are currently estimating. It's also a natural flood control :)

As an example, I think that the divination card was fine to good and is something that I was happy to have in the deck. The Howling Mine worried me because I thought that I would get buried by giving an aggro deck too many tools to beat me. Thinking about it though, the card actually helps you reach Ascend by giving you extra resources. Again, this was sealed which is going to have more board stalls and slower games in general.

That is awesome :)

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[Jason Salvano]

A few quick takes from my prerelease experience:

Ascend was not achieved once by me or my opponents.

Everyone seemed to want to run three colors. One of my opponents "splashed" Contract Killing and Chupacabra. Both great cards, but he lamented not being able to cast them.

The one red mana sorcery that has an opponent's creature deal damage to another opponent's creature--Mutiny--that card is a wrecking ball. I left combat trick mana up to stop it. Additionally, there are numerous 4 damage effects from red, and it would behoove you to play around those if possible.

There's a lot of removal in general. Creatures don't typically stick around for long.

I played vampires with a somewhat suspect curve, no splash. I had two copies of Captain's Hook and two copies of the white aura that gives a creature lifelink, +1/+1, and creates a vampire. If my deck did not curve out, it would eventually Tron up a creature and cause 6 point life swings. I had enough removal (especially after siding in Divine Verdict) that this plan even worked well against dinosaur decks.

That is awesome :)

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[Tom H]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll likely be playing tomorrow afternoon. 

That is awesome :)

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