Reserved List

So I have been reading about the handling of the reserve list for quite some time now. Especially in the wake of articles by Ben Bleiweiss on www.starcitygames.com and also the forums on www.mtgsalvation.com

That being said I finally felt it was time for me to make my opinion known. The reserved list puts the game in a box. The policy basically says, "If you were around since the beginning, great! Enjoy the Legacy and Vintage formats. However if you're new to the game, we're not going to make it all easy for you get into anything other than Standard." I would even make the case that Extended can be hard to break into. I digress. The point is everyone goes on and on about how the value of their cards would go down. So? Let me ask you a question; what do you care more about? The health of the game over time or your own investment in the game? If you answered yes to both GREAT. You should care about your investment. But if you solely care about the investment and don't give a rat's ass about the health of the game, then we have a very serious issue.

Listen people, they aren't going to reprint power and if they do it's going to be in very limited formats and I honestly don't see it making much of a price difference on the older version. People still want that card and are willing to pay for it. What getting rid of the reserve list does is allow cards that have VERY LITTLE value in the first place anyway, a chance to be reprinted or functionally reprinted, or whatever they want to do.

Wizards needs to make the game accessible to a large range of players who want to play a large number of formats. I myself would love to get into Legacy and Vintage, but I have a mortgage and there is no way in hell I'm spending that kind of money to get into the format. Wizards has just lost one player to a format that they are trying to push more. And I know for a fact that I'm not the only person to feel this way. I'm one of thousands. Yes it's true that the recent turnouts in GP Legacy and Vintage events has been staggering. But take a moment to reflect on how many people actually showed up with T1 decks that could compete. People came because they want to be able to play with every card they've ever bought. They don't want to be restricted by Standard, where you are investing so much more over time to stay current.

The point is the reserved list serves one purpose, to keep the value of cards for collectors and sellers. That's it. That's what it boils down to ladies and gents. These people want to ensure that their Underground Sea will still sell for $90. They care about the value of their card, not the game.

I love this game (yes even though it frustrates the hell out of me) and I want to see the game continue to grow and see the success that it has recently been seeing. The game is not slowing down anytime soon, but it needs room to grow. The final word is that the Reserved List helps keep the game from growing. Think about it....

Optimus Prime Control

Okay so I've been battling the internal demons for awhile now to build an actual control deck with counterspells in it and I finally broke down and did it. I hate you very much to both Big Head Joe and Joey Pasco.

Anyway my version of this deck is to control the board via burn and counter. I can win in one of three ways. I can pop off Jace's ultimate on the Mind Sculpter version (as soon as I get one more of these I will be taking the other version of Jace out of the deck), load up a Pyromancer's Ascension and burn away, or a combination of Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Calcite Snapper.

Speaking of Pyromancer's Ascension, I think it's absolutely wonderful in this deck. Imagine having it out and being able to cast a kicked Into the Roil. Return two permanents to their owner's hands and draw two cards for four mana. EFFICIENT.

I like the way this deck plays out. I have a little trouble with aggro decks that are fast, but from playtesting I've still won a game on just 1 life. Once I get to a certain point, it's impossible for me not to control the entire board.

I'm open to suggestions on how to improve this and NO I am not open to making this grixis colors. I like only having two colors and I think that having three takes away from what I'm trying to do with the deck.

R/W Valakut Control

This is what I'm currently running, I am open to and looking for suggestions

FNM At My Place - Round Two

So we're doing FNM at my place again tonight which should be fun. Going to have a slightly bigger turnout which will be cool. I'll have to set up an additional table.

I'm going to continue to playtest the Eldrazi deck and I have made the following change based on some comments.

-4 Kazandu Refuge
+4 Rootbound Crag

I don't need the life and this deck doesn't want to have lands come into play tapped. As Big Head Joe said this deck tolerates Oran-Rief only because of what it does. I think this will increase the deck's power by quite a bit. I kept quite a few hands in the tourney that contained more than one refuge and those turns where I can't do anything because of mana are killers.

Eldrazi: The Bloodraided Tourney Report

So I've determined that this deck really only truly fears one deck type and that is Jund. Jund obliterates me if I don't start off super fast. If I can start fast and pull off an Eldrazi Monument early enough, it's game in the bank. Same thing goes for control decks. I got hit with three, count them three Day of Judgement and still won the game.

During the tourney this past weekend everyone had trouble with Noyan's TurboFog deck and I didn't seem to. I was patient, waiting until he had tapped out and made my move, winning the round 2-0. I lost in the top 4 to Jund and Noyan beat Gary who was running Jund in the final.

So what does this tell me, it tells me to continue tweaking my sideboard.

Right now I have the following

4x Pyroclasm (to deal with tokens from Sprouting Thrinax)
3x Windstorm (for Sphinx)
3x Acidic Slime (to beat down on manabases for Jund and Cruel Control)
3x Mold Shambler (for the same reason and also has a way to deal with Planeswalkers)
2x Vines of Vastwood.

By the way, I also made the following change:

-3 Burst Lighting
+1 Lightning Bolt
+2 Sarkhan Vol

Let me tell you what a difference Sarkhan makes in this deck, it's unbelievable how awesome he is. Also popping off his ultimate, and then laying down another Sarkhan to give 5 dragons haste = win.

Friday Night Playtesting

So we're all getting together at my place tonight for playtesting. I'm sure I'll see plenty of different archetypes so I'm very excited. I have made one minor change before playtesting tonight

-2 Overrun
+2 Ant Queen

I didn't feel I was getting enough synergy with using just the Chosen to power the Monument. We'll see if this makes the deck any better, I think it will and honestly with three Garruks, I don't need another Overrun in the deck.

Will post detailed results of playtesting later this evening.

Playtesting

Okay so did a bit of playtesting last night. Unfortunately only got one round in against Vampires but it was encouraging data against another aggro deck.

I played first and played a Kazandu Refuge, going to 21 life. My opponent played a swamp and passed the turn. On turn two I played a Forest and played Birds of Paradise. On their turn two, she dropped a swamp and played Vampire Hexmage. At the end of her turn I Burst the Hexmage for two. On my turn 3, i dropped an Oran Rief and played an Elvish Visionary, sticking a counter to it with Oran Rief. On my opponent's next turn they kicked a Gatekeeper and I sacrificed the Visionary. On turn 4 I dropped another Kazandu Refuge going to 22. I played Garruk, untapping two of my lands and passing the turn. On their turn they played a Bloodghast and hit me with Duress, although i had nothing of note. On the next turn I played an Oran Rief and passed the turn. On their turn they played a Vampire Nighthawk and swung in with the Bloodghast, taking me to 20. On my turn I played a Forest and did the following. Tapped to play Bloodbraid Elf, drawing up a Burst Lightning I used to get rid of the Bloodghast. I then used Garruk's ability to untap two lands and cast another Bloodbraid Elf drawing up a Lightning Bolt which I used to take out the Nighthawk. I swung in for six. On their turn they played a hexmage and used it to take out my Garruk. On my turn I stuck another Refuge going back to 21 and proceeded to play a Nissa, which I used to draw up a Chosen and hit it with two counters courtesy of the Oran Riefs in play. I swung for an additional six damage. On their next turn they hit another Hexmage, which they unfortunately used again to get rid of my planeswalker, I say unfortunately because I feel it was the wrong move. On my next turn I stuck another Oran Rief and hit for lethal damage.

Not a pretty game and definitely not indicative of the vampires deck, but I really love hitting Bloodbraid Elf and drawing up burn.