Stolen Goods: Road to Recovery, Part 2

This is part two of my two part series on how I came back to the game of Magic after getting my collection stolen last summer. This part of the article is going to focus heavily on the EDH deck I built which allowed me to once again enjoy the game. To read the backstory, please see Stolen Goods: Road to Recovery, Part 1.

Welcome back loyal readers! So at the end for the first part, I was about to tell you about my new EDH deck featuring my favorite angelic host, Jenara, Asura of War. Check out the deck HERE!

First things first, let's take a look at why I chose this beautiful angel as my Commander. I knew that I wanted to play Bant (U/W/G). Not only are Blue and White my favorite colors, but the Bant colors allow me to: run counter-magic, draw cards, take extra turns, ramp mana, tutor for creatures, wrath the board, run diverse removal and recur permanents all in one deck! Together, these three colors are extremely powerful and give the deck very little in the way of weaknesses to any particular strategy that my opponents may be using. Since we know what colors we want to be playing, let's next take a look at some of the Legendary creatures that we could use to head our deck.

• Rafiq of the Many: I find him to the most common Bant general that I have had to face off against. Rafiq wants to run in a more aggro/voltron-style of deck than the one I am running.
• Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: No doubt, a great choice for a Bant general. He seems to want to be built as a control or heavy token commander. Not a great choice for the ETB (Enters the Battlefield) deck that I'm looking to build here.
• Roon of the Hidden Realm: A very interesting creature from the Commander 2013 product. Originally, I had planned to use him as my Commander for my rebuild Bant deck. he is a value engine for sure, if he survives long enough to untap. I found him too slow in playing with him and he requires a more 'build around me approach' to ETB effects. His awkwardly high mana cost means that recasting him can become difficult.

These are the main 3, besides Jenara that I considered when building a Bant deck. Of course you have other choices like Treva, the Renewer, Rubinia Soulsinger, and Angus Mackenzie. However, I believe Jenara to the best candidate to be leading this deck forward to victory, she gives us an early, very powerful beater, who can stop other aggressive generals in their tracks. Just ask Javier how much he likes seeing a turn 3 Jenara! A 3/3 flyer for U/W/G gives her amazing power for her cost, and the fact is that her ability to add +1/+1 counters remains relevant for the entire game. Your opponents have to worry about her whether she comes out on turn 3 or as late as turn 15! That's the kind of power that I'm looking for in a general! Another great thing about her is that she doesn't require other cards to work. She is not a build around me general, which makes her great for the leader of an ETB/good stuff/control deck like the one that I am planning on building; the other 99 cards can all have more use when you don't have to use multiple cards to turn on your commander.

The way that I usually like to play this deck is with an attrition style. Throughout the game I poke at my opponents' resources, including life totals! Weakening them until it is hard for them to put up a fight. I generally try to control my opponents, using my ETB effects, until they run out of things to do and then go in for the kill with my utility creatures and the queen of them all, Jenara! ETB effects and the engines which help them be effective are the keys to this kind of play-style. I like to consider these kinds of cards as my 'renewable resources' as they can often times be blinked or recurred to give me more incremental advantage over my opponents; this is especially important in larger Free-For-All style games where I have multiple adversaries. This slow, methodical buildup of resources usually allows me to take over the game later on, resulting in most times a huge Jenara or a combo-kill of some kind. Good stuff cards do have a place in this deck; however, sometimes you just need value cards like Path to Exile or Wrath of God. These cards have the least synergy with the rest of the deck, but sometimes when things are going south they will be the cards that will save you.

I feel like a major portion of this deck is how it uses value engines that, while powerful, are not really degenerate. Sure, sometimes I can do 'mean' things like bounce a Woodfall Primus or Acidic Slime a bunch of times to blow up lands; but quite honestly those kinds of plays don't happen very often with the deck. Most of the time those cards are going to come in and blow up a problem non-creatures card (or 2) and then give me a valuable creature on the field to do something with; you definitely sometimes have the option to do degenerate things sometimes, but overall you are just trying to gain incremental value while keeping your opponents in check. Jenara is used mainly to plug any and every hole that there might be with the deck. She gives us a very good play, and response to almost anything after turn 3. Opponents plays Kaalia? Go ahead and drop your blocker. You had a nice board position that was just Wrath-ed away? Add an instant threat to the board. Need that Solemn Simulacrum to get your ramp going? Use Birthing Pod and offer her up as sacrifice to find it. She really allows us to always have a play that your opponent needs to answer, but that's not to say that she has no synergy with the deck though, far from it in fact! The ability for the deck to gain incremental advantages over time plays right into her ability to be a mana sink in the late game. Pump her up with a Mirari's Wake on the field or a Prophet of Kruphix and go to town!

Speaking of the Prophet, she is an all-star in the deck. The ability to untap your creatures and lands at the end of each player's turn is killer! Not to mention, with her giving creatures the Flash ability you can cast basically anything you want.. at any point you want! The deck obviously works much better with her on the field, which makes her a top target for opponents' spot removal.

Well there you are! A look into the deck that made me enjoy playing Magic again. I fell in love with Jenara when I first played her and I can only see that love growing stronger as time goes on. 

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-Evan Forster

Stolen Goods: Road to Recovery, Part 1

[Today's article comes from guest writer Evan Forster and is part one of a two-part series. Enjoy!]

"Wounded soldiers looked up, grateful for her appearance. But she passed over them, her eyes firmly on their foe."

My story begins during the summer of 2013. I had finished playing in the Modern PTQ season with my friends and teammates of CasualNet Gaming and I was getting ready to go on a fabulous vacation to Europe! When I got back from the trip, I had to get something from my car and noticed that my car was messier than it had been before I left; compartments were emptied of their contents which were scattered around in the general area from which they came. My jetlagged brain brushed this off as no big deal, "maybe my dad had to grab something from my car right before we left and couldn't find it," I thought. It was until that weekend when I was at my good friend Javier Remy's house and getting ready to play a game of commander that I realized something was amiss. Previously, I always left my Magic cards in my car. Since I used them so much, it seemed only natural to always have them with me. This time, when I went out to grab my bag of cards, I realized that they weren't there. My mind flashed back to the disheveled state of my car when I got back from my trip and I automatically knew what had happened: my collection had been stolen. I went back inside and told my friends that it appeared that I had left my cards at home and I borrowed Jav's Grimgrin, Corpse-Born deck for the game. We played a pretty long and enjoyable game, but I just couldn't get into it.

As far as collections go, mine wasn't extremely valuable from a collector's point of view, I would say roughly $1500-$2000. The thing that hit me hardest was the loss of my commander decks, specifically my Jenara, Asura of War deck, which I had been working on for about 3 years. The deck was my baby, my first real EDH deck. A deck that had grown from a collection of cards and an idea thrown together for a quick EDH game, to a force to be reckoned with at the table. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the loss of that deck was what crushed me the most. I stopped going to the card store for a while and stopped playing Magic in general. Realizing that I couldn't play a deck I created anymore in my favorite format of Magic made me question whether it was worth it to continue playing the game at all.

However, later that summer, the Grand Prix tour was coming to Miami, FL, a mere 4-5 hours' drive from my hometown of Orlando. I figured attending this was possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I decided that if I was ever going to get back into Magic, this was the time. I built the deck that I thought was best, Bant Enchantments, because it allowed me to play my favorite colors: blue and white. I began playing the deck at FNMs in the Orlando area and enjoyed playing it for the most part. It had a solid matchup against most of the field and had a pretty straightforward plan. So I went to the GP and figured that if I could put up a decent showing, I'd enjoy playing Magic again. I was expecting a lot of aggro, which I could easily race. My only downfall was against control decks, which were getting pushed out of the format by aggressive Burning-Tree Emissary decks and attrition-based Junk reanimator decks, as far as I knew, so I shouldn't be seeing a lot of them. I considered picking up a Cavern of Souls to put into the deck, just so I could stick that Geist of Saint Traft which spelled doom for control decks. However, again, I wasn't expecting a lot of those decks, so against my better judgment, I passed it by (It was a Korean Cavern of Souls, WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?). Nevertheless, we spent the first day at the GP prattling around, looking at the vendors, getting cards signed by artists and generally just hanging out having a good time. Aside from a slight hotel mix-up that evening, everything was going great. Going into the first day of play, I was feeling confident.

I saw 3 control decks in the first 4 rounds and scrubbed out hard.

Needless to say, I was not happy. I came to the GP to prove to myself that Magic was still worty my time; that I could rebuild; that things would be ok. They weren't. During the PTQ season, when I scrubbed out of a tournament, it turned into a fun day of "hang out with friends, meet new people, and play EDH." This time I had no such EDH decks, so it turned into a long two days of "sit around and try not to be bored." During these two days, I began to seriously think about giving up the game that had been a pretty big part of my life for the past five or so years, and a major force in the development of some of the best friendships I have today. "Is this worth it?" I thought to myself, "can I keep doing this?" After thinking about it, I realized that I wasn't having fun playing the deck that I built for the GP or, to be honest, playing Magic in general at that point. Competitive Magic has never had a very big draw for me. I mostly play in events because I get to hang out with friends. I know some of you are asking why I didn't build a new EDH deck, and the honest answer was that I had no desire to. I didn't want to invest so much time and money into a deck again. To me, when you build a commander deck, it has part of your personality in it and I didn't want to invest so heavily into something that could be stripped away at the whim of a stranger. I also knew how much time and effort went into building a truly fun deck and since my local EDH metagame is filled with very powerful decks and great deckbuilders, I didn't feel I had the resources to rebuild a decent EDH deck that I would enjoy playing.

Quitting looked more and more likely. I looked into selling off my little collection (which consisted mainly of my Standard deck), quietly asking a few of my friends how much they would value some of the more expensive cards. But in my heart I knew that if anything could get me back into Magic, it was commander. I decided to wait until the Commander 2013 product came out in November to decide if I wanted to play the game again or not.

Fast forward to November. I hadn't really been playing a lot of Magic in the previous months, skipping the Theros pre-release and release parties (which used to be some of my favorite events), and generally not hanging out at the card store. I managed to find the Commander pre-cons at a local Target and picked up the Bant one. The theme of the deck was similar to the Jenara deck that I had loved so much previously, so maybe--just maybe--this would be the deck to get me back into the game. I took it home and made a few changes with the cards that I had. The next day, I headed down to UCF to meet up with a few of my friends to play with my new commander deck. After the first couple turns, I was hooked again. I forgot how fun commander games were! I was playing a deck that I owned again. I decided to remake Jenara, but this time it would be different. This time I would have new tricks.

This was Jenara 2.0

Continues in Thursday's installment of Stolen Goods: The Road to Recovery, Part 2

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-Evan F.

General Musings: Born of the Gods Top 8

Greeting commanders! Born of the Gods has been live for a couple of weeks now, which is just enough time to collect some of the new cards and even try some of them out in your commander decks. Once again, as with the release of every new set, I give you a list of what I think to be the top 8 Born of the Gods cards to add to your EDH deck.

8. Plea for Guidance

Plea for Guidance is reminiscent (both in form and function) of old Morningtide-favorite Idyllic Tutor. For the upgrade price of 3 mana, Plea grants an additional card instead of just replacing itself; a rarity among tutors. This is especially good at setting up two-card combos like Energy Field/Rest in Peace, Greater Auramancy/Sterling Grove, or Ghostly Prison/Propaganda. What's more, true to the flavor of Theros block, Plea can even search out Creature spells like Archetype of Imagination to combo with the Moat you just searched for.

7. Forgestoker Dragon

At 5/4, Forgestoker Dragon does not immediately cause opponents to quake in their boots, but he does a marvelous job getting attackers through waves of blockers. Generals like Kaalia of the Vast and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge who insist on attacking despite their small stature will have an easier time surviving when flying alongside this dragon. Forgestoker also makes "slith" abilities (abilities that trigger when a creature deals combat damage to a player) more reliable. Cards like Ashling, the Extinguisher, Balefire Dragon, and Quietus Spike (bonus for granting Deathtouch to our pinger!) increase in value when opposing blockers become invalidated.

6. Fated Return

We've already seen my penchant for Reanimate spells. Fated Return comes at a high premium, but leaves your creature with some serious power in gaining indestructible. Imagine recurring a creature like Sigarda, Host of Herons with indestructible; how does your opponent deal with that?! Creatures like Living Inferno and Pestilence Demon also become more threatening when they are no longer a threat to themselves. Scry 2 on your turn is just icing on the cake, but works if you're trying to slip the spell past counter-magic. Oh yeah, did I mention this spell can be cast at Instant speed? Well it's true, and it brings your dude back unconditionally (unlike Necromancy or Goryo's Vengeance).

5. Xenagos, God of Revels

The chaotic prince of parties in ascended form. Xenagos, God of Revels is a persistent threat that can turn even small creatures into formidable threats. Functioning like a high-octane In the Web of War, Xenagos's ability also turns big creatures into absolute monsters. What's scarier than a Worldspine Wurm? A 30/30 Worldspine Wurm with Haste! What's more, Xenagos's ability checks only a creature's power, which gives normally frail attackers like Kamahl, Pit Fighter or Nova Chaser a little more staying power. Seven devotion is also easier to achieve than it sounds in Commander, so this God will even join the fray on many occasions.

4. Heroes' Podium

Although not obviously powerful, Heroes' Podium has the potential to provide some serious card advantage. In decks featuring a high density of Legendary creatures like Karador, Ghost Chieftain, Kaalia of the Vast, or (quite obviously) Captain Sisay, Heroes' Podium will net its controller a card more often than not. The legendary-based anthem can be relevant in decks like these as well, and becomes just plain silly with Leyline of Singularity. Even at its worst, the Podium allows a player to use leftover mana to dig for a general that may have been tucked by Oblation or Hinder.

3. Perplexing Chimera

Do you play control? Lots of counter-magic? Do cards like Boseiju, who Shelters All and Cavern of Souls give you a headache? Then does BotG have the Enchantment Creature for you! Perplexing Chimera provides a unique effect that does not immediately threaten the board, but causes opponents to think twice before slamming powerful spells like Time Stretch, Comet Storm, or Genesis Wave. Obviously the downside to this effect is that opponents gain control of it afterwards, but this can be mitigated with effects like Homeward Path or Venser, the Sojourner. In any event, when this creature hits the battlefield, decisions become... confusing (bet you thought I'd say perplexing =P)

2. Champion of Stray Souls

Yet another reanimation spell, but just hear me out! Champion of Stray Souls is like a selective Living Death that keeps on giving. As long as its controller has fodder to feed to its ability, Champion of Stray Souls can continuously use "enters the battlefield" and "leaves the battlefield" abilities to generate huge advantage. Imaging setting up a huge graveyard with Survival of the Fittest, casting Champion of Stray Souls, casting Prossh, Skyraider of Kresh for a bundle of tokens, then bringing back all of your huge creatures in exchange for expendable Kobolds. Cards like Blood Artist and Death Match add even more value to the exchange. This creature's ability to pseudo-Disentomb itself adds another layer of inevitability to its graveyard strategy.

1. Archetype of Endurance

Frankly, all of the Archetypes are powerful. Denying opponents acces to an evergreen ability is almost as powerful as granting it to your entire team; and the Archetypes do both of these things. Archetype of Endurance earns the top slot because of the prevalence and power of Hexproof. Between powerful generals like Geist of St. Traft and the ubiquity of Swiftfoot Boots, removing opposing threats can be difficult at times. Archetype of Endurance allows you to ignore that hurdle, provides a sizeable body to attack with, and protects itself all at once. Asceticism in creature form is pretty robust and you can bet I'm jamming this into Mayael the Anima to give my beefy beaters an extra layer of protection.

Honarable Mentions:
Astral Cornucopia - Worst-case scenario it's a Manalith, which ain't bad. Improves significantly with Surge Node or Proliferate effects.

Whims of the Fates - I like... the IDEA of chaos decks. Whims of the Fates is a chaos kind of card. Could even work well with Barren Glory.

Well that's the list and I'm stickin' to it. I hope you enjoyed this edition of commander top 8 and would love to hear your stories of BotG cards. Good luck on the battlefield, fellow Commanders!

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-Javier Remy

Standard Corner: American Control (post-BotG)

Hey guys! It's been a while since I've sat down to talk about ACTUAL Magic. For the upcoming excursions that we're conducting to promote our organization across Florida, I really wanted to make use of the new CNG feline/soldier token that my friend, Felicea designed and build a Standard deck so I could play in FNMs and use it to facilitate communication with players. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a shoe-in. I also remember all the fun I had playing the oppressive Jund deck with Huntmaster of the Fells so I could abuse our adorable wolf tokens. However, my Jund party was always interrupted by the absolute bane of my existence every tournament: Sphinx's Revelation.

If I was going to play Standard this go around, I would be sleeving up Sphinx's Revelations and Supreme Verdicts without hesitation. Alongside Elspeth, maybe I could be an FNM ruler?? This week, I wanted to give you guys a take on a deck I've been playing with for the past month, American (U/W/R) Control:

Spells (34):
4x Izzet Charm
4x Counterflux
4x Supreme Verdict
4x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Detention Sphere
2x Last Breath
2x Mizzium Mortars
2x Turn // Burn
4x Jace, Architect of Thought
2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1x Assemble the Legion
1x Elixir of Immortality

Lands (26):
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Steam Vents
4x Sacred Foundry
4x Temple of Triumph
2x Temple of Enlightenment
7x Island
1x Plains

The deck accomplishes a few things very well including completely dominating control mirrors. Access to both 4 copies of Izzet Charm and 4 copies of Counterflux ensures your opponent doesn't resolve a threat or Elixir of Immortality easily. Game 1 is heavily favored because of your superior countermagic and the mirrors are generally slow enough that winning Game 2 or Game 3 isn't necessary because of time constraints on the round. Instant-speed removal like Last Breath and Turn // Burn isn't completely blanked against U/W Control decks because they still rely on Mutavault as one of their win conditions and access to Red gives us Assemble the Legion in our main and Sideboard that dies only to their 4x Detention Sphere and Glare of Heresy among the 75 while the latter has lost favor in the past few months. Assemble the Legion can easily steal games away if it goes unanswered and is incredibly difficult for Mono Black Devotion to fight against. Our Red splash also gives us access to Mizzium Mortars which has increasingly been one of my favorite removal spells since it answers both Blood Baron of Vizkopa and Stormbreath Dragon. The fiery mortars also act like copies 5 and 6 of Supreme Verdict because of its Overload cost (since RRR isn't too difficult to get). Speaking of the benefits of our Red splash...

Izzet Charm is one of my favorite inclusions that we have access to when adding a splash of Red. I'll admit that I wasn't convinced at first of this R/U Charm over the more popular Azorius Charm. Izzet Charm has a good deal of utility with all 3 modes.

1) Deal 2 damage to target creature: Obviously useful for killing 2 toughness creatures in aggro matchups, kills Pack Rat on turn 2, Voyaging Satyr/Elvish Mystic, kills Mutavault, kills your own Soldier token when targeted by Bile Blight against a Desecration Demon (relevant!)

2) Negate unless they pay 2 colorless: Although not a hard counter, it helps push timings back against Underworld Connections, opposing Jace, Architect of Thoughts, Detention Spheres, other Sphinx's Revelation, fights off other countermagic, Planeswalkers, and other random anomalies that demand an answer. Don't try this mode on Abrupt Decay; it isn't very successful.

3) Faithless Looting cards away: Although you are ultimately down on cards after resolution, the idea is similar to Azorius Charm and it draws you specific answers when you need them late game or lands to hit Supreme Verdict or other answers you need at the moment. Sacrificing a card for the opportunity to react ideally to a situation isn't a terrible trade-off.

Although Azorius Charm replaces itself with its draw mode, I think the extra draw on Izzet Charm along with the support of Scry lands to generally increase the quality of your next draws pays dividends in the late game where card advantage can be compensated via Revelation and Jace. The Griptide ability on Azorius Charm is very useful and isn't dependent on size like Izzet Charm's Shock mode, however both spells interact favorably against hyper aggressive decks that those modes are used for. Although Azorius Charm can setup sweet interactions against Obzedat, Ghost Council and has solid game against any-sized creature in combat, it's usefulness is limited by forcing the creature in combat, so it can't touch mana dorks easily and is easy to play around. I find that Izzet Charm catches people off-guard and often I've had an opponent have to read all of its abilities >:D

American Control also has a solid game plan against Aggro decks and Midrange decks alike. Since most of the format's 'relevant' creatures are generally more expensive than previous formats (Desecration Demon, Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Stormbreath Dragon, Master of Waves to name a few) and most players are sleeving up Scry lands to their heart's content, we can be greedy with our three-colored mana base and use Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere to get ahead on board when we fall behind in the early game and obviously Sphinx's Revelation and Jace, Architect of Thought to refill our hand after expelling a bountiful amount of removal spells on creatures/things and gain some necessary life.

Here's a quick look at the Sideboard:

Sideboard (15):
1x Last Breath
1x Daxos of Meletis
4x Gainsay
2x Negate
1x Warleader's Helix
2x Assemble the Legion
2x Wear // Tear
1x Aetherling
1x Fated Retribution

One of the spicier cards in this list is Fated Retribution. After a suggestion from my friend, Jules and losing to a myriad of Planeswalkers courtesy of Alan Simons, Planeswalkers posed a real threat for me. Outside of countermagic, the mere 4x Detention Spheres would often allow decks packing walkers on walkers to reach their ultimate ability uncomfortably often. I brought in Fated Retribution often and I'm almost considering moving it to the main-deck since it's useful for killing almost every threat in the format. I really like this wrath effect and over Planar Cleansing because it doesn't hurt my own Detention Spheres I've setup and can be cast at Instant-speed.

I'll admit that I'm not too competent with this Sideboard and that I've been looking into incorporating some additions including:

Celestial Flare - for hard to kill beaters
Thassa, God of the Sea - card selection for the mirror
Revoke Existence - against Gods/opposing Detention Spheres
Mizzium Mortars (3rd copy) - for reasons
Pithing Needle/Encroaching Wastes for Maze's End
Plea for Guidance - to grab Detention Sphere and Assemble the Legion
Assemble the Legion (4th copy) - if Mono Black Devotion is still a problem
Stormbreath Dragon - for midrange/control opponents

A couple of the weaknesses I've found with the deck is card disruption from Black decks in G2 and G3. Although G1 is heavily favored, the side-boarded games are very difficult and fighting off their myriad of threats including Pack Rat, Nightveil Specter, Desecration Demon and worst of all, Underworld Connections can be difficult. Matchups against Planeswalker-heavy decks have also been problematic, so looking into adding another copy of Fated Retribution might be just what the doctor ordered.

Thanks for taking a look at my U/W/R Control list for this post-Born of the Gods Standard format. I'll be playing with Sideboard and numbers in the maindeck to find the most appropriate proportions. Try out American Control at your next FNM and let me know what you think. Until next time, Magic players!

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-David J.

Modern Mastery: Scrambled Eggs

With the new bannings out this week, I thought it would be fitting for another Modern Deck Tech showcasing an old favorite of mine: Eggs. For those of you interested in a cheap deck to play for this year's modern season, there are a bunch of viable tier 1.5-2 decks out there to choose from. There's Living End, Zombie Hunt/Seismic Assault, Martyr Proc, Infect, and... Eggs. I'm going to give you an argument of why Eggs may not be a dead archetype and why it might be worth your time to take a closer look at it.

So why is it called Eggs, anyway? Well, there was and old Extended deck that used the ally-colored mana rocks from Odyssey (Sungrass Egg, Darkwater Egg, etc.) as a way to draw cards just like today's version. Thus the deck was appropriately, and somewhat harmlessly, dubbed "Eggs." I was piloting Eggs back when it was Tier 1 in 2012-2013, and since the banning of Second Sunrise, I have attempted to recreate a competitive list. Conley Woods posted an article last year about Eggs 2.0 and what he thought was a good list. I found many of the main deck choices to be rash and not perfectly thought out, so I developed a chart comparing my old list (which I Top 8'd a PTQ with back in early 2013), my current list sans Second Sunrise, and Conley Woods's suggested list.

There are many criticisms to Eggs and that it is too slow and boring to play against. Non-interactive Magic make most players cringe, but combo players thrive on it. Eggs is a combo deck whose purpose is to do one thing: reduce interaction. After Eggs gets to a certain level of incremental advantage, it explodes with an infinite or uncounterable way to kill the opponent. It uses artifact cards like Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Star, Ichor Wellspring, Terrarion, Elsewhere Flask, and Conjurer's Bauble to draw cards and gain a board state of artifacts. The deck then uses cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks, Reshape, and Lotus Bloom to create fast mana, which is subsequently spent on Faith's Reward and Open the Vaults. The two cards then begin a cycle of slow torture until a win condition is found to put opponents out of their misery. This is just how we like it.

I will first point out the major differences between what old Eggs lists were good at and why we made the changes to the new card choices. There were two main decklists for Eggs running around when Second Sunrise was still around: one used Krark-Clan Ironworks and the other did not. Stanislav Cifka popularized the KCI-less version with his Pro Tour Return to Ravnica victory. I used his list with a few minor variations, such as Noxious Revival, Silence, cantrips in the main deck, and replacing some of his sideboard cards with Spell Pierces. Other than that, Cifka had a marvelous understanding of this deck and what cards he wanted to optimize his draws. The KCI version looks similar to what we have in the Woods column, but we have a few very curious--and in my opinion dubious--main deck decisions.

His list looks really clean and crisp to the untrained eye, but nothing has been optimized. We have 4 copies of almost every card, which is great when you want to draw all of those cards, but some of these cards aren't that good in our new game plan. KCI is a tool, not a crutch. We don't need it to win, so why rely on it so heavily? His win cons reflect why he has 4 in the main deck, but we'll revisit that in a moment. KCI pushes the deck to use more artifacts with "leaves the battlefield" triggers. This makes Ichor Wellspring our best card; it replaces the old Elsewhere Flasks (our worst card in the old list) and becomes a little cantrip for us. Speaking of cantrips, what happened to all of the one-mana draw spells in our new list? Isn't digging necessary?

Our best card in the old version was by far Sleight of Hand. Serum Visions was great for digging, but you really just wanted better card selection provided by Sleight of Hand. However, we're curiously missing almost any card draw in the new list. The cantrips have been removed in lieu of Thoughtcast. Thoughtcast, in combination with KCI, allows us to use Terrarion, Ichor Wellspring, Chromatic Star, and even Mox Opal and Darksteel Citadel to great effect. KCI helps draw extra cards and making a crucial extra bit of mana makes a huge difference in what turn the deck can go off. All of these small synergies make this deck very consistent. We cut out those pesky Adarkar Wastes from Woods's list to increase those consistent synergies. Ghost Quarter makes extra mana, but only when you can find more basics. Adarkar Wastes clunked up the draws.

The elephant in the room here is the replacement of Second Sunrise by Open the Vaults. Open the Vaults is twice as much mana and occurs at Sorcery speed, which pushes our deck from going off around turn 3.5 to probably a solid turn 4. Open the Vaults necessitated the switch to the more explosive mana version of Eggs. Lastly we have the win conditions, of which we have myriad of options. Pyrite Spellbomb, Banefire, and Grapeshot are all great ways to use all the mana we are creating to kill our opponents. Yet for some reason, Woods decided that a two-card combo was a better way to kill his opponent. I think this was a crucial and dubious mistake. I made room for two more Mox Opals by cutting out a win condition and a land, which provided the deck with nice mana ramp leading to earlier combos. I also ended up cutting a Terrarion or two in favor of a Silence and a Conjurer's Bauble. Why just one? If Melira Pod, Soul Sisters, or another deck with semi-infinite life manages to go off, I can still kill my opponent. I feel the lack of Conjurer's Bauble was a huge oversight in Woods's list. You just can't win some games without going infinite. This one card slot makes a big difference.

So let's talk matchups. This deck doesn't like interaction, so it main decks a couple of Silences to make sure you can go off uninterrupted. Our worst matchups are probably Infect, Hatebears, Martyr-Proc, UWx Control, and Faeries. Faeries may make a comeback with the unbanning of Bitterblossom. I don't think the addition of black will scare us, we don't mind discarding a few cards to a fair deck, and Silence hedges us in this matchup. These matchups hurt us most due to the high density of counter-magic and access to sideboard Rest in Peace or Stony Silence. Infect is just too fast sometimes; we need to win the die roll to have the best chance.

Sideboard plans usually involve cutting some number of Thoughtcast, Terrarion, and KCI, adding up to seven cards from the sideboard. Any more than seven cuts make it really difficult to stay consistent. If on the draw, you can cut an Island to maybe slide an additional sideboard card in. Against fair decks without countermagic, we bring in Grapeshot and probably a couple of Echoing Truth. Against BGx decks with a lot of disruption, Leyline of Sanctity is our best friend, potentially alongside Grapeshot. Against any of the white decks, we have to respect the hate and bring in those Echoing Truths. The Pact of Negation and Spell Pierce come in against control in lieu of Leylines. They function as extra copies of Silence when necessary and can sometimes snag a piece of hate on the stack. Unfair matchups like Splinter Twin, Infect, Storm, etc. are combated nicely with the Echoing Truth and counter-magic package. Lastly, the Pithing Needle is good for green decks. Deathrite Shaman is gone, but that means that Scavenging Ooze will see more play. Grafdigger's Cage is great against reanimator and Birthing Pod strategies.

I hope you guys enjoyed my reminiscing on Eggs. I may even be taking a similar list to this year's Modern PTQ season. Thanks for reading!

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-Stephen Poindexter