I'm glad I made this segment, so I can just bullshit a bunch of topics without dedicating a lot of time to one specific thing. Some of the depth of older articles take a long time to cover and figuring out exactly how I want to deliver that information takes a couple days. For example, I had the recent COMMANDER! Review: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed article finished for about a week before I posted it, but I usually proof-read the articles for several days to make sure they are getting the intended message across. I'm a perfectionist, don't judge me.
I watched the Grand Prix Indianapolis Finals 2012 for Legacy on the wizardsmtg YouTube channel between Tom Martel, piloting U/W/b Stoneblade and Kenny Castor piloting R/U/G Delver Thresh (ft. commentary from Richard Hagon and Sheldon Mennery). I'm a HUGE fan of Legacy, even though I don't get to play, so watching this game was a real treat. If you aren't very familiar with Legacy, the video might be a bit difficult to watch, but I would definitely consider checking it out if you're interested in familiarizing yourself with the eternal formats. Here's the abridged version in case you don't have an hour available to watch the match.Game 1 was a complete blowout by Castor who stuck a pair of Tarmogoyf on the field and used a pair of Wasteland to keep Martel from establishing a board presence. Game 2 was very intense. A trio of Nimble Mongoose and a pair of Delver of Secrets would create a lot of pressure Martel had to deal with throughout the game. Martel had a Lingering Souls to keep them at bay, but Castor was slowly approaching Threshold, which would pump his team of Mongooses and be too much to handle. In an amazing attempt at staying alive, Martel used a Vendilion Clique to pitch his last card, which was Jace, the Mind Sculptor to dig one card deep. The card he found was another Jace, the Mindsculptor, which was less than impressive. However, the Vendilion Clique allowed him to survive a combat phase after he blocked a Threshold Nimble Mongoose and drew his sided-in copy of Perish, which cleared Castor's board and allowed Martel to seal the game away with his Jace and a Spirit Token holding an Umezawa's Jitte. Game 3 took forever. Castor used Stifle on Martel's Flooded Strand to prevent Martel from finding a White source. After stabilizing, Martel landed a Jace on the board that would continue to Fateseal Castor til Jace reached 12 counters and used the ultimate to kill off Castor. Castor responded with another Stifle (EPIC) and control of the board switched back an forth until Castor landed a Batterskull on the board and gained life to get out of dying range and forced Castor's concession. I was really irked by the fact that the players didn't shake hands after the match and the game also felt somewhat cold. I'm not entirely sure why, but I can understand that Legacy is a very thought-intensive format so the audience may have been focused on the plays rather than the personalities. Otherwise, it was a great game and a lot of fun watching 2 very skilled players pilot two of the best decks in Legacy.
In other news, I made a few tech changes to my Teneb, the Harvester EDH deck (if you'd like to see the 2011 version, click HERE). When you add 'tech' to your deck, you're mainly adding cards that are specifically good in your metagame. If you go back to Bramble On #1: Pilot, you can sort of gauge what type of metagame my friends and I have. It's currently dominated by small creatures and creature heavy strategies, because our environment doesn't have many control decks. I think the reason control didn't succeed was because of Teneb (not to be pretentious). When I was building Teneb initially back in the Summer 2011, I was keeping in mind a very strong control presence in Gainesville and had the deck heavily prepared for the match up. Also, reanimation strategies are just generally good against control since removal and countermagic becomes weaker when your opponent has many avenues at reusing the cards you're trying to prevent. Consequentially, we have reached an aggro metagame. CJ's Rith, the Awakener, Jav's Kaalia of the Vast, and Evan's Jenara, Asura of War all feature little creatures. I've had countless times where I just wanted a creature that can kill off all the other creatures, since Wrath effects are pretty useless against cards like White Sun's Zenith (CJ), a hasty Kaalia (Jav), or instant speed creatures via Aluren (Evan). I eventually caved in and bought a Massacre Wurm and traded Gyula for an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. I'm hoping they'll give my deck a better matchup against all the aggro nonsense. Overall they're not bad additions. I personally dislike adding cards that are too specialized to the deck and only help against narrow strategies, but I feel ok about these additions since Teneb has had problems in the past with getting killed by creature hoards in the past.In very unexciting news, I bought a pack at Wal Mart today. This is probably my 5th or 6th pack that I've bought within the past few months and I opened a very exciting Lost in Woods. WHAT A PULL! I hate Dark Ascension.
So I went to Jav's house the other day for the first time. It was as you would expect, typical Hispanic family. Huge home with lost of people in it. I had the pleasure to hang out with his younger brother and nephew for a while. Apparently, Jav's 5yr old nephew and I had some disagreements and settled our dispute over a quick Nerf War. I'd like to think that I won, but we'll call it a tie for the sake of sportsmanship. After our friend Gyula arrived, we sat down and played some Magic. Jav busted out Kaalia of the Vast, Gyula with Dromar, the Banisher, and myself with Intet, the Dreamer. Let's just say, the first two games ended very quickly with Intet reigning on top with overwhelming victory. I don't even remember Game 1, where Game 2 was dominated by Into the Core and my Consecrated Sphinx holding a Sword of Feast and Famine. I played Into the Core and Jav, with a really stern reprimand, says 'Sorcery'. I look at him and I didn't know what he was talking about. After 5 seconds of silence, I said 'No?' He flips the card around, and says 'That's so f-cking stupid!' BEST moment of the night; with Nerf war in a close second.
Finally for the last story of this Bramble On. The day after, I met up with C.J. and Evan at a Starbucks to hang out and stuff. Both of them were eager to play some cards and I wasn't going to stand in the way. Me and C.J. played a pair of 1v1s. The first was my Teneb, the Harvester vs. Rith, the Awakener. It was a pretty easy win for Teneb. Then we played a pretty sweet game of Intet vs Rith and I won with a top deck Comet Storm. Victory doesn't come sweeter burning the burn player. Evan jumped in with Jenara, Asura of War and things became weird. Evan began by destroying CJ's Sol Ring. Then CJ retaliated with an Acidic Slime on Evan's Hinterland Harbor. You see where this going? The two of them kept pummeling each other until, well, the game ended? This happened again in another game. I don't understand, but after a certain point, they both stop caring about winning and just Go for the Throat on each other. Maybe it has to do with them competing from a deep-seated rivalry that I cannot fathom. Maybe they're both really touchy and emotional. Or stupid. Either way, it's pretty hilarious. I just sit there and watch, like a sadist.
Until the next Star Wars analogy,
-David J.
Interested in more Magic content? Check out the Bramble On series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!
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