Archive for February, 2010

The February tournament of the Third Catalan Legacy League (LCL3) was held in Ripollet (town near Barcelona) with a turnout of 92 players. As usual, Enric Luzán has released the videos of the Top8 games. So far there’s the quarterfinals and semifinals. The videos from the final will come up shortly. You’ll find the decks from the top8 after the videos.

Top 8 LCL3 Febrer – Enric Luzán vs. Rubén Pérez G1

Top 8 LCL3 Febrer – Enric Luzán vs. Rubén Pérez G2

Top 4 LCL3 Febrer – Daniel Rodríguez vs. Francisco Fernández G1

Top 4 LCL3 Febrer – Daniel Rodríguez vs. Francisco Fernández G2

Videos from the final will be posted as soon as they are released.

Top8:

• Daniel Rodríguez (Elfeir) (Dark Depths) – Adrià Bosch (Bant Treshold)
  
• Francisco Fernández (U Merfolks) – David Miñarro (MinasS) (Supreme Blue)
  
• David Gómez (Inexistente) (Survival RGB) – Adrián Cañadas (Renimator)
• Rubén Pérez (Robinho) (UB Faeires) – Enric Luzán (Enric) (SurviBant)

Top 4:

• Daniel Rodríguez (Elfeir) (Dark Depths) – Francisco Fernández (U Merfolks)
• Enric Luzán (Enric) (SurviBant) – David Gómez (Inexistente) (Survival RGB)

Final:

• Enric Luzán (Enric) (SurviBant) – Francisco Fernández (U Merfolks)

Decklists: (I just copy/pasted them, sorry if there’s cards in spanish)

ENRIC LUZAN 19PTS
4x noble hierarch
4x brainstorm
4x force of will
4x tarmogoyf
3x rhox war monk
2x qasali pridemage
4x survival of the fittest
1x squee,goblin nabob
3x ponder
4x daze
1x kitchen finks
1x eternal witness
1x loyal retainers
1x iona,shield of emeria
4x sword to plowshares
4x misty rainforest
3x windswepth health
1x flooded strand
3x tropical island
2x taiga
2x savannah
1x tundra
1x forest
1x island
1x plain

SB

3x natural order
1x progenitus
3x firespout
1x llawan,cephalid empress
1x etherswon canonist
2x gaddock teeg
2x enlightened tutor
1x wheel of sun and moon
1x loaming shaman

ADRIA BOSCH 18 PTS

4x mago dela manada qasali
4x tarmogoyf
4x mangosta agil
4x force of will
4x daze
4x brainstorm
4x ponder
4x reprimir
4x trampa de hechizos
2x spell pierce
4x espadas en guadaña
4x erial
4x tropical island
3x polluted delta
3x flooded strand
1x island
3x tundra

SB

3x tormod’s crypt
2x depredador trygon
2x rafaga de agua
2x abrazo krosano
2x aguja medular
3x kitchen finks
1x rhox war monk

FRANCISCO FERNANDEZ 17 PTS

13x isla
3x mutavault
4x erial
4x ofuscar
2x reliquia de progenitus
4x perito branquia plateada
4x frasco de eter
3x triton soberano
4x merrow reejerey
4x force of will
2x jitte de umezawa
4x atrapamaldiciones
3x parada
4x señor de la atlantida
2x trillador de la estela

SB

2x la tentacion del legado
2x threds of disloyalty
3x espinas de amatista
1x tormod’s crypt
1x jitte de umezawa
2x reliquia de progenitus
1x verdad reflejada
1x rafaga de agua
2x rafaga elemental azul

DAVID GOMEZ 17 PTS

4x verdant catacombs
2x taiga
2x bayou
1x badlands
6x forest
2x swamp
1x mountain
4x veteran explorer
2x birds of paradise
1x scryb ranger
1x stingscourger
2x tarmogoyf
1x sakura-tribe elder
1x squee,goblin nabob
1x eternal witness
1x big game hunter
3x kitchen finks
1x fleshbag marauder
1x viridian zealot
1x masticore
1x anger
1x spike weaver
2x bloodbraid elf
1x genesis
1x shriekmaw
2x greater gargadon
1x faerie macabre
1x chameleon colossus
4x survival of the fittest
4x aether vial
3x maelstrom pulse
1x sword of light and shadow

SB

1x magus of the moon
3x krosan grip
3x engineered plague
3x tormod’s crypt
1x iona,shield of emeria
1x doomed necromancer
2x reanimate
1x life/death

ADRIAN CAÑADAS 16 PTS

4x underground sea
4x polluted delta
4x verdant catacombs
2x swamp
2x island
2x bayou
4x force of will
4x daze
4x brainstorm
4x entomb
4x mystical tutor
4x exhume
3x reanimate
1x show and tell
3x dark ritual
1x wipe away
2x iona,shield of emeria
1x blazing archon
1x empyrial archangel
1x inkwell leviathan
1x sphynx of the steel wind
4x careful study

SB

2x echoing truth
3x perish
3x duress
3x infest
3x krosan grip
1x hellkite overlord

DAViD MIÑARRO 16 PTS

4x force of will
4x brainstorm
2x ponder
4x sensei’s divining top
4x counterbalance
4x swords to plowshares
3x firespout
4x rhox war monk
4x tarmogoyf
2x trygon predator
4x daze
1x path to exile
4x misty rainforest
2x island
1x forest
1x plain
3x tropical island
3x tundra
2x volcanic island
4x flooded strand

SB

2x tormod’s crypt
2x llawan,cephalid empress
1x treads of disloyalty
2x pithing needle
2x krosan grip
2x gaddock teeg
2x relic of progenitus
2x dueling grounds

DANIEL RODRIGUEZ 16 PTS

4x dark confidant
4x tarmogoyf
3x vampire hexmage
3x gatekeeper of malakir
4x hymn to tourach
4x thoughtseize
4x smallpox
3x living wish
3x sensei’s divining top
2x grim discovery
2x smother
3x dark depths
3x wasteland
4x verdant catacombs
2x bloodstained mire
4x bayou
4x urborg,tomb of yawgmot
3x swamp
1x forest

SB

1x tombstalker
1x vampire hexmage
1x gatekeeper of malakir
2x extirpate
2x perish
3x infest
4x krosan grip
1x ()

RUBEN PEREZ 16 PTS

1x riptide laboratory
3x mutavault
4x polluted delta
4 underground sea
3x wasteland
3x island
1x swamp
2x flooded strand
4x spellstutter sprite
3x vendilion clique
4x dark confidant
4x force of will
4x brainstorm
2x umezawa’s jitte
4x bitterblossom
4x daze
3x spell snare
3x smother
2x ghastly demise
2x sensei’s divining top

SB
3x spell pierce
3x engineered plague
3x hydroblast
4x thoughtseize
2x relc of progenitus

Grand Prix Madrid is coming soon, very soon! At this point, no one  doubts about this tournament being the most important event on eternal this year.

Europe has a huge tradition of playing Vintage and Legacy. Tournaments like the Eurovino, Bazaar of Moxen, UAL Power9 Series, DDAY, etc… had proven to be successful at gathering eternal players from all around the continent. Those tournaments had turnouts between 100 and 400 players. Some (standard) GPs hardly get better turnouts than some of the previously mentioned tournaments. I believe, GP Madrid is going to set a new participation record on any eternal tournament ever done.

GP Madrid is an excellent movement by WotC. They knew in advance than placing a Legacy GP in Spain would be a total blast. They made the small mistake of placing it in Madrid instead of Barcelona, but we can forgive them about that. Spain is a well connected with the rest of the world. The east american coast is just 6-7h by plain from Madrid. Biggest cities in Europe are about 2h away as well.  All in all, it seems to me that WotC is experimenting the impact of an eternal format in the professional scene. They couldn’t have chosen a better moment, a better place.

Spanish players are motivated and excited about the GP. The eternal communities in Spain are all moving to Madrid to play this event. There’s no reason to not show up there unless you can’t really make it. Traveling to and sleeping in Madrid isn’t expensive at all. You can sleep 2 nights and go by plain there for less than 100€ from almost any point of the country.

Personally, I’m also very excited about this event. I know I haven’t playtested a lot, but I feel confident about my 75 card choice. I’ve played combo for years already, and no matter what pro is sitting in front of me, that I’ll go for the win. I trust in myself and in my deck, as it is probably one of the most competitive decks at the moment.

Of course, to win a Grand Prix you need more than a deck. You need to stay calmed and focused, you need to play well during many rounds, you can’t make lots of mistakes/misplays, and of course, you need a bit of luck.

I always liked how Mike Flores uses this illustration to express a state of mind of a winner player:

Believe in yourself, believe in your luck & believe your deck.

While being totally sure what and how to play in Legacy, something different happens to me with Vintage. If my performance at the GP aren’t as I expected, there’s a very interesting Vintage tournament I’d like to play on Sunday.

http://www.team-pataners.com/gp-madrid-vintage-side-event-info/

I’m not certain about what decks are the decks to beat in Vintage at the moment. I love playing control, but decks like Tezzeret start to lose power against some other archetypes such as Noble Fish and the Golem Aggro Staxx.

Shall I…

… play Confidants?

… play Spell Snare?

… play Spell Pierce?

… play DSC, Sphinx or Leviathan?

… play red or green for SB?

… play none, 1 or 2 Tezzerets MD?

… play Misdirection?

And these are just a few of the questions I get while building a control deck. If I start thinking of building a combo deck, then I’d get even more.

People say that Spell Pierce are good. People say that Tarmogoyfs are good. People say, people say.

I can’t say what’s the right thing to play because I haven’t played enough lately. I would have loved to play every Vintage tournament held lately, but my work has made it impossible for me to attend to most of them. Anyways, no matter what 75 cards I sleeve (if I play that Vintage side event), I’m sure it’s not going to be good enough. Not good enough, because there’s no deck capable of not losing stupidly against Time Vault + Voltaic Key in the early game. Some times, you have an excellent hand with Force of Will, 2 lands, Mana Drain + some bussiness spells, and you get owned by first turn time vault + key with FoW backup from them. Ok, it’s a 2 card combo, and he got lucky… but dude, your hand was fucking awesome and you still lose without being able to play a fucking turn.

Two years ago, when Time Vault wasn’t working as it is right now, I was 100% sure of my deck being able to defeat ANY deck in the format. I was playing Gifts Tendrils and had great success with that deck. I knew what to play, how to play and when to play it. Now I’m a bit lost as the format is a bit random, luck depending and less skilled based. Of course skill counts, but when they Vault/Key you first turn, there’s nothing much you can do rather than Force of Will.

I hope we get some changes to the restricted/banned Vintage list in June. I hope they fix the problem, and I also hope they finally print some good business spells for the control players. All we do now is watch how all blue cards get restricted while awesome creatures and artifacts are printed collection after collection.

To end this post, I’d like to tell you guys that I’ll try to update the blog during this weekend with news about the GP. I probably will be broadcasting some games (you’ll find that at the top menu labels – “live TV“) live from there.

Stay tuned and wish me luck!

And no, it’s not a paradise island in Hawaii! Raphy from Paris (France) showed us in the SCG boards his awesome Island.

It’s a Guru Island that’s been sun color faded for a long time (probably a year or so), signed and altered by Terese Nielsen.

I love how Terese Nielsen altered it! It’s a very simple but well integrated drawing, that fits perfectly with the guru island theme.

The only thing I’m missing to Raphy’s Island, to make it a perfect 10, would be the missprint logo, like in this other one:

Normally on TP we focus on Magic for big boys, that being the Eternal formats of Legacy and Vintage. But that won’t stop us from dropping the knowledge about some Extended tech for our loyal readers who are trying to take their game to the next level by qualifying for the Pro Tour. Extended is almost as good of a format as Vintage and Legacy, but the power level of the cards is a bit less.

I played in an Extended PTQ in Madison, Wisconsin (USA) this past weekend, and 168 players showed up to battle for an invitation. I had been brainstorming some decks the night before, and this is what I rolled with to the tournament:
BUG Faeries 20101Q 1.0, by Jaco 02-19-2010
Business (38)
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Bitterblossom
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Thoughtseize
4 Spell Snare
3 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
3 Repeal
3 Smother

Mana Sources (22)
3 Mutavault
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Breeding Pool
6 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest

Sideboard (15)
2 Extirpate
2 Shred Memory
2 Darkblast
2 Damnation
1 Deathmark
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Glen Elendra Archmage

I figured that Zoo and ThopterDepths variants would be the most played decks in the room. There ended up being a lot of those as well as everything else you could imagine. I ended up 4-2 then dropped to head home on a long drive. I beat Dredge, Tooth and Nail (with Iona+Painter combo), RW Landfall, and 4C Zoo (with Bant Charm, etc.). I ended up losing to another RW Landfall (he drew 4 burn spells in a row to kill me) and also lost to someone playing the Living End cycler deck (I drew ZERO counterspells of any sort in two games, although I had 3 Thoughtseizes in my two opening hands).

The deck is very good, and can play the aggro-control game very well. Smother is quite nice right now in such a creature heavy format, and can help you combat nearly every deck you’ll run into. I prefer this over Doom Blade because Smother also hits Dark Confidant and Vampire Hexmage, which is extremely important since I consider ThopterDepths to be one of the best decks in the format (and most played by those who have the cards). The protection package seemed very good, and I always seemed glad to have a counterspell handy to deal with things like Path to Exile or Lightning Helix. The Tarmogoyfs seemed better in theory than Mistbind Clique, as they cost half as much mana and are generally as big (although they don’t fly), but with four mana I often found myself casting a Tarmogoyf and protecting it with Spellstutter Sprite. The only drawback is that Tarmogoyf doesn’t fly and it doesn’t tap out your opponent’s lands. That slot is up for debate, but I felt the addition of Tarmogoyf main and Kitchen Finks out of the sideboard went a long ways towards helping combat the early rushes that aggro decks can present.

The sideboard was very good to me, but next time I would probably drop the third Glen Elendra Archmage and add the fourth Kitchen Finks to increase the odds of seeing those early against Zoo and aggro decks. I somehow didn’t get paired against ThopterDepths, but the Darkblasts are great at dealing with their Confidants and Hexmages, while Shred Memory (and even Extirpate) is good at dealing with the Thopter portion, and Glen Elendra Archmage is just fantastic in general against Blue decks. Damnation proved very useful against Zoo, as they almost have play out as many guys as possible against you to get through your creatures and Bitterblossom, and then you can just Damnation away a lot of their resources. Darkblast was the MVP against RW Landfall, and is also fantastic against Elves (which was everywhere after Matt Nass’ recent GP Oakland win).

If you are looking for something a little different, I think this deck is a viable option for the current Extended climate and current round of PTQs. If I was to play the deck again I would max out the number of Kitchen Finks available in the sideboard, but everything else seemed great at combating a field of ThopterDepths, Zoo, Elves, Dredge, and the combo decks out there (Hypergenesis, Scapeshift, Living End, etc). Good luck in your battles!

Sorry for the offtopic here but, today while searching for some images I managed to find this awesome Pentavus illustration ala M.C. Escher style, and couldn’t resist sharing it.

I’m a huge huge fan of M.C. Escher since my early days at the Architecture University. I’ve always reproduced his impossible illusions myself in order to find out the geometry of his art. Mixing Magic: The Gathering with M.C. Escher in one image really made my day!

Whoever did it, coz I haven’t found out yet, deserves my special mention for his/her excellent photoshop skills!

This is the original art from M.C. Escher’s “Reptiles” illustration:

I wonder why he deleted the book at the top right corner though…

When it comes to games such as MtG, Poker, Settlers, etc… where’s the edge between playing casual or doing it like a pro?

When you play a game, no matter which, you should always be able to distinguish the line between fun and competition. The real key to answer the question is finding the right balance of how much fun you have while playing competitive. How so?

Let me go a bit back in the time, and explain you something about my childhood first.

Back in 1993, I was a 13 year old boy with lot to learn and not much to lose. We had this math teacher, named Patiño, who challenged us every day by playing what he called “El Ruedo” (the Bullring). El Ruedo consisted in a very simple but efficient way to motivate the students. Everyday, Patiño would be asking questions and, if you would answer them correctly then you would move one desk forward closer to the teacher; if you would answer wrong then you would lose one position and move back to the end of the classroom.

We were part of a living ladder everyday, where best students would play at the top of it, while the worst ones would be sent back to the end. Being at the beginning had rewards while being at the end punishments (extra homework, etc…). I’m sure Patiño had his own statistics from his students: % of answers correct, % of answers wrong, number of seats gained, number of seats gone, etc…

For me, El Ruedo was motivating, self-challenging and, most important, fun. I loved being at the top tables, competing with the most brilliant students, while others were also trying to compete to get my seat. It was fun being there, but, was it only fun because of me, or was it also because you could see others go down in the ladder?

Ladder systems ain’t nothing new. Chess is using it, MtG is using, all sort of sports are using it, even teachers are using it. What’s behind ladders that makes them so interesting? Very simple, they are self-breaking.

Let’s move now to our game, Magic: The Gathering. When we start playing the game, we don’t even know about the existence of the DCI rankings. We play purely for fun and we don’t care much about losing, because you play with your friends (who have a similar level than yours) and they also lose often.

When you sign in your first tournament you are informed about the DCI. You fill in that paper and, from that point, you are now interested about rankings and your stats.

At the beginning you lose and lose points, and that isn’t fun at all. Then you wonder why you are doing that bad. You start reading magazines and copy/paste decks from them. You begin to feel the improvement, but that’s not enough to make you go up, because your winning % won’t be any bigger than 50%. Then you start reading articles from pro’s on the internet, you read tournament reports, you prepare your decks based on the metagame, etc… At that point you can start feeling the improvement, and your winning % will be over 50% for sure.

From that level to the one where you become a winning player there’s an abyss. What makes someone a competitive player just like any pro? Do pros enjoy the game and have fun just like when we were casual players?

There’s few things you should do and know about competitive players:

1. They play a lot. Experience is important, because it will make easier to you certain choices. It’s very simple how to react to a certain situation when you’ve experienced it in the past.
2. They read a lot. You think you read enough? Meh, you are wrong! They read more.
3. They are people with huge self-confidence. This is probably the most important thing when it comes to being competitive. You have to believe in yourself from game 1 of round 1, to game 5 of a Pro Tour final. If you ever doubt of your chances of beating a certain player just because he’s a pro, then your putting yourself in a losing-position from the very beginning of the match.
4. They never surrender. If there’s any slim chance of winning a match, no matter how small it is, they’ll go for it. If you need to topdeck a card to win a game you are otherwise losing, you have to believe in the chance of drawing it.
5. They act like pro’s. Being competitive means behaving competitive. It’s not the same talking like a kid than saying the right words at the right moment. It’s not the same to blame your opponent’s luck when he’s beaten you, than accepting the lose, shake hands and afterwards analyze your own mistakes.
6. Winning is fun, therefore pros have more fun than any other players. Losing ain’t specially nice or funny. The more you lose, the less fun you have. So, the other way around makes lot of sense as well: The more you win, the more fun you have!
7. When they start a tournament, no matter which one it is, they play to win it and they believe they can win it. If you attend any event, and you see a pro signing in, you shouldn’t be worried about him/her, you should be encourage to defeat him, because you know you are going to win the tournament.

These are few, but not all, facts that you should know about competitive players. To become one, you need to train your mind specially. First thing to do to become a winner is believing you are one, and thinking like one. Any thoughts of losing will always put you in a disadvantaged position. Losers ain’t losers just because of their bad luck, they are, because they don’t know how to become a winner.

First step to become a winner is to think like one. Change your mind, be positive and never doubt about yourself! These are few tips I could share with you and I hope it makes you guys better players in the near future.

I know this issue of the price of some Legacy staples has been discussed enough over The Source and other forums on the net. So, I’m not gonna give you my opinion here but instead I’ll show the latest vignette from Pro MTG Online, the ultimate self-aware Magic strategy web comic, that updates itself.

I just love what the Good Gamery guys can do!

Terese Nielsen is back for all of you Avatar fans! This time, she’s released an alteration on an Eternal Witness featuring NEYTIRI from Avatar.

Click on the image to go to the eBay auction!

Did you missed her last Avatar alteration on a Force of Will? Don’t worry, you can see it here!

JACO asked me if I could repost the video we recorded 2 years ago at GP Madrid. In the video, mr. Tedin draws JACO’s playmat, what I believe, is the best art he did in the whole weekend; a Drain-hearted Necropotence. I hope you guys enjoy the video again!

Once you reach a certain age, the concept of winning might be different than it was 10-15 years ago. I’m 100% sure I’m gonna win GP Madrid, in many different levels. Let’s have a look at what winning would be depending on your age.

When I was 16-19 year old, my “win” concept was:

• Reaching day 2 at the GP main event.
• Playing a metagame deck (rogue style)
• Get those white borders dual lands I’m missing to complete a certain deck.
• Get my junky commons signed by the artists attending.
• Eating my mum’s sandwhich, who made it with tones of love in order to wish me luck
• Saturday’s night party takes place at the hotel, with cheap vodka and a nameless “cola”. Your hangover is the only thing you will remember from that night.
• Travelling for 100€ including bus and hotel/hostel.

When I was 20-25 year old, my “win” concept was:

• Winning a GPT in order to start with some byes and increase the chances of making day 2 and fight for the money.
• Playing the best deck of the moment. You copy/paste from pro’s on the internet and no longer from ink-printed magazines.
• Get those FBB dual lands I’m missing to complete a certain deck.
• Get your playable rares and playmat signed by the artists attending. I would buy something from them to seem nicer.
• Finding a good Kebab/McDonnalds/Burger King nearby to eat.
• Saturday’s night party takes place at cheap bars and later at the wrong disco. The ugly girls at the disco is all you will remember from that night.
• Travelling with your friends by car, find a nice 2 star hotel and share 2 rooms.

When you are my age, soon 30, teh win concept is:

• Finding the Side Events board to see when the Vintage events are starting.
• Real men play combo, and you love it.
• Get those beta duals and foil jap fetches from your usual dealers.
• Queueing less than 3 hours and getting all your beta/foil japanese playable cards signed and altered. You also want the artists alter your playmat. Instead of buying their art like younger noobs do, you give them a 50€ bill straight away so you don’t have to worry about that piece of paper all day.
• Finding a Michelin graded restaurant in the area to enjoy a good meal. If you are doing well at the main event, who cares? You drop and go score a good meal.
• Saturday’s night party takes place at the most glamorous places. First a good cocktail in some chick lounge and then some champagne at the best club in town. You’ll remember hardly anything, but then your friends will find out you did crazy stuff! No hangover, indeed.
• Travelling by car/bus or cheap train ain’t an option. You want to be there fast and comfortable, and that’s why you go by plain or high-speed train. You want the hotel to be at least 3 stars and  no longer share beds.

No matter how old you are, remember:

There’s levels and levels among this “pimp” movement. Luckily for me, i’m not a big fan of white borders, aka Summer, aka Edgar. But, there’s other people like magic61983 who love the white sh*t.

The news now come from this italian collector named Morgan who recently showed us this Summer Edition Sol Ring altered by Mark Tedin with a Juzam Djinn on it.

This is real pimp sh*t we are talking about here! There’s LOTS of $$$$$$$$ in this Sol Ring, and i really mean LOOOOOTS.

The italian “king” of pimp, Antonio Duranti aka Akenathon, is the owner of this beatiful Legacy Zoo deck.

Beta lands, Arabian Apes, Signed bolts, Legend’s Chain Lightings, etc… This deck has plenty of “old school” cards mixed with the latest coolest cards; Tarmogoyfs, Fetchlands, etc…

Good job Antonio!

Following up on our previous Focus on Legacy columns Constructing Bant Survival and Playing Bant Survival, we can now look at some alternative sideboarding strategies with the deck. This can provide opportunities to shore up weak matchups, throw an opponent off guard, and take the deck in a new direction with different and unexpected lines of play for your opponent to account for on the fly during a tournament match.

In the previous articles I presented a version that is uncommitted to punishing against any one strategy and seemingly trying to guard against a very broad field. Spellstutter Sprite is a card that people will either love or hate depending on what they face, but as an experiment let’s drop the 2 Spellstutter Sprite from the main and replace them with the third Rhox War Monk and 1 Sensei’s Divining Top. While very mana intensive, Sensei’s Divining Top is one of the best cards in Legacy, and could potentially work very well with 8 fetchlands, 4 Survivals, and all of your other cantrips. With Top and all of your shuffle and manipulation effects you can see tons of different cards and really dig through your deck in no time, helping to find Survival or that key counter or removal spell. That would bring us to this list.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.1, by Jaco 02-011-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

If we dropped the Spellstutters and added Rhox War Monk, this would theoretically give us a little bit better game against aggro decks, while slightly weakening our combo matchup. So what about changing the sideboard in accordance with this, and to potentially give us better game against other decks as well? Check out this sample sideboard:
Sideboard B (15)
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
1 Meddling Mage
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Relic of Progenitus

While I and many others don’t necessarily like diluting the power and focus of a Survival deck with the CounterTop package, it has a few interesting uses. First of all, it can really help to hammer the combo matchup, and can also aid against things like Loam decks, Burn, Threshold, Zoo, etc. With this sideboard you still have access to extra removal in the form of Path to Exile, as well as graveyard hate in Relic of Progenitus. You could also drop the fourth Counterbalance for another Meddling Mage, Path, or whatever else you’d find handy.

I won’t go as in depth as the previous article talking about matchups, but here’s a brief look at potential sideboard use with this version:
Sideboarding Against Merfolk
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
-2 Ponder
-1 Sensei’s Divining Top
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Noble Hierarch

Sideboarding Against Ad Nauseam Tendrils
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+1 Meddling Mage
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage
-3 Noble Hierarch

Sideboarding Against Dream Halls
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+1 Meddling Mage
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
-4 Tarmogoyf
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Rhox War Monk (or Ponder)

Sideboarding Against Naya Zoo
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-4 Force of Will
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Noble Hierarch
-2 Ponder

Sideboarding Against Goblins
+2 Path to Exile
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Sensei’s Divining Top

Sideboarding Against CounterTop
Totally dependent on what else is in their deck besides CounterTop, but your own CounterTop is pretty good here.

Sideboarding Against Canadian/Tempo Threshold
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
-2 Ponder
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage

Sideboarding Against Dredge
+2 Path to Exile
+3 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
+1 Sensei’s Divining Top
-3 Spell Snare
-4 Noble Hierarch
-1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Sideboarding Against Lands.dec
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+3 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Meddling Mage
-2 Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf (depending on number of Blue cards you want for Force)
-1 Eternal Witness
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Ponder

As you can see, your lines of play and defense will be slightly different in a number of matches. Counterbalance has value in about half of these matches, and in a few matches it will really shine. Its inclusion is definitely debatable, but it may have merit depending on your tournament scene.

The Natural Order + Progenitus Package
Another interesting sideboard (and possibly main deck) option is the Natural Order package, which allows you to cheat Progenitus into play. The usefulness or necessity of this is questionable when you have the Iona package, but it provides another angle of attack that your opponent has to take into consideration. Like Tinker in Vintage, Natural Order can be a fantastic topdeck or can be a card you actively search out with your Brainstorms and Ponders to serve as a trump card or provide a quick win, rather than struggling in a protracted battle of resources.

So what matchups does the Natural Order package actually improve? Well, that’s tough to answer, because getting Progenitus into play doesn’t guarantee you a win. What it does do though is put your opponent on a two turn clock, meaning they have to find an answer immediately or the game will be over, provided they don’t have lethal damage on board or have enough burn in hand to finish you off in conjunction with their existing attackers. This can be very daunting for the opponent to always have to simply worry about the threat of Natural Order into Progenitus once you’ve hit four mana, so the fear of this can also possibly lead to a change in how your opponent plays the game against you, what he counters, what he uses removal spells on, and more. A two turn clock can be very relevant against nearly every deck in the format, but it is not without problem. For one thing, you can often be stuck with a dead card in hand (either Natural Order if you are short on mana, or if your singleton Progenitus also winds up in your hand), although this risk can be mitigated by the ability of Brainstorm to shuffle away dead cards. If you are playing against a deck with a lot of counterspells it will be difficult to get Natural Order to resolve, and the loss of a creature and card in hand if it gets countered can really set you back.

The next logical question related to Natural Order is if it is good enough to play in the sideboard, is it or is it not also good enough to play in the main deck? I cannot answer that for you, but if you play in a field with a lot of aggro decks and little in the way of Blue decks or CounterTop variants the Natural Order package can be very effective at speeding the game up if you don’t have Survival of the Fittest. In a way it’s almost like a 5th, 6th, and 7th copy of Survival, because if either one resolves and you’re not facing lethal damage on the board you’re most likely going to win the game in short order. One advantage of not playing this in the main deck is that you can sideboard it in as a surprise to overwhelm an unsuspecting opponent, meaning their other potential hate cards (likely graveyard or enchantment hate) would be rendered useless. I can definitely see the reason that Natural Order Bant decks have become increasing popular and successful, so this is certainly worth testing and investigating further if you think it would be good in your area as a tweak to the Survival style Bant deck.

Generic Sideboard Cards vs. Narrow Sideboard Cards
When constructing a deck and sideboard, there seems to be a couple of different schools of thought which I’ll try to briefly outline here. One school of thought would entail constructing your sideboard with cards that might not be quite as potent, but have more general application against a larger pool of decks. Cards like Pithing Needle, Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, Meddling Mage, and Relic of Progenitus are pretty good examples of this. They can each answer different strategies effectively, even though their might be a more powerful but narrow card which would be sided in less frequently.

The other school of thought eschews having more generic answers for trying to isolate perhaps the most difficult matchups and give you stronger game against those decks you’re convinced you need major help against. The reasoning behind this is often that your main deck should be good enough to beat deck X and Y (or perhaps the players you consider to be easy), so you will devote specific cards to those matchups you know you’ll have to beat in the Top 8, or against those couple of really good local players who you want to have that ace up your sleeve for. Examples of this would be the use of Engineered Plague (at the height of Goblins’ popularity) and Mindbreak Trap (against Storm combo).

One card that has escaped serious discussion in Bant Survival sideboards could potentially fall into either of the aforementioned groups of sideboard cards above, and that card is Back to Basics. Many decks in Legacy run anywhere from 0 to 3 basic lands maximum, and Back to Basics can be crippling against these decks (a number of which are often difficult matches for Bant Survival). Decks like Canadian Threshold, Lands.dec, Mono White Stax (and WG Stax), Dredge, and many others usually run 0 to 2 basic lands maximum. Back to Basics has the potential to really turn the tide and shut down an opponent in a close game, especially if the opponent does not see it coming. For example, in game 1 if you play a couple of basic lands and a couple of dual lands, your opponent will likely never expect non-basic hate coming in. In games 2 and 3 you have the potential to fetch up to 5 basic lands and potentially ruin your opponent if you land a Back to Basics from turn 3 onwards after they have tapped out to play something important on their turn. If all of their lands are single usage only, Back to Basics has the opportunity to swing these matches far in your favor against an unprepared opponent.

Building the Unexpected
In a recent interview with legendary Magic player Kai Budde, who many consider to be the best player or constructed player of all time, I read a very interesting theory of Kai’s that I agree with. When asked for advice about succeeding in constructed Magic tournaments, Kai responded “The best strategy is to know what the others are going to play and come with something that nobody else expects.”

In terms of Magic theory this is relatively profound and often true. When people are accustomed to playing against commonly played decks they are able to predict what will come next, what your lines of play are, what your (and their) potential outs are, and so on. When you play unorthodox choices you take this advantage away from your opponent. That doesn’t mean you should play sub-optimal cards, but introducing uncertainty and uneasiness to your opponent in the middle of a potentially tense match just might gain you the edge you need to be victorious.

Cards like Counterbalance, Natural Order, and Back to Basics are a few examples of unexpected yet potentially very potent sideboarding strategies that you can use in your bag of tricks from tournament to tournament. Whether you choose to play more generic answers in your sideboard or to get creative and run with the innovative and unexpected, keep these options in mind when you build your next sideboard. If you play in an area with regular tournaments keeping a fresh or rotating approach to dealing with your opponents can give you an advantage and can lead to more wins, especially in corner cases.

The new Team Pataners web has been running for a bit more than a month now. In this period of time, we’ve tried to improve several aspects of the web in order to give the reader the best experience we can offer. Still, we feel that’s not enough.

One of the major changes introduced has been the language. We now write in english. Personally, I love doing so, even though I make looooots of mistakes.

The other BIG change is the web design. We’ve worked hard on finding a design that is both functionally and innovative. We started with Team Pataners back in 2007 and we’ve always been ahead of the general style, creating the trend that people followed afterward.

We feel like this new “magazine” style isn’t just a very cool-looking site but also works great for both the writers and the readers. It has and endless amount of stuff we can use to provide you with the best quality posts, news, reports, decks, etc… Give us some more time, and wait until we master the use of all these tools that were given to us.

And how about or cool mobile version of the blog? We’ve done it first, again.

In order to get rid of those f***ing annoying Hostican error messages, we finally migrated our blog and we’ve gain lots of stability.

If I’m happy about something, besides of having returned, it’s about my friend Jason joining the Team Pataners staff. This tandem is gonna rock! We both are very enthusiastic about this project and we believe we can do great things together. Give us some time and credit and you’ll find out by yourself. Right now we are working on the right formula of contents. You know, a bit of articles, some reports, some eternal news and announcements, some pimp stuff, etc… = success? Time will tell.

So, after this little introduction, I’d like you to answer this:

How would you improve the Team Pataners web?

(Your comments are very important to us, so please, spend a little time to explain us how would you improve the site)

Terese Nielsen is back altering mtg cards! After this little break of hers, she’s released this excellent Avatar alteration to eBay. If you are willing to start a playset of Terese Nielsen atered Force of Will, like mine, this is the perfect time to begin!

Click on the image to go to the eBay auction!

You can also find an eBay add on the right sidebar with this auction box. There you can follow its progress, bid, etc…

Good luck folks!

Thanks to my friend Josep, aka Broadcast, we’ve finally fixed our problems with our past hosting provider: Hostican. Whose name really described its service… they hosted what they could LOL.

Now we are using IBERONLINE, and according to Josep, we won’t have any more problems.

This migration was very important, coz I was starting to worry about you guys. I know how annoying it is to try visit the blog and get that “I PWNED YOU” message.

We move on!

In the previous Focus on Legacy column we analyzed the common choices for constructing Bant Survival. This companion article will hopefully shed some light on playing against some of the common matchups you might find to expect in your upcoming Legacy tournaments, whether it’s a smaller weekly tournament or a massive tournament like GP Madrid.

Here’s the decklist I presented as a suggested starting point for your adventures with Bant Survival.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.0, by Jaco 02-01-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Sideboard A (15)
3 Spell Pierce
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Meddling Mage
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Loxodon Hierarch

As mentioned in the previous article, this is built for a mixed metagame where I’d expect to face a range of aggro, control, combo, and other random decks that always show up at Legacy events. The deck and sideboard should obviously be tweaked for what you expect to play against and expect to have trouble against. So for example if you think Naya Zoo and aggro will be heavily represented and you won’t be running into much Counterbalance, you could easily drop a Qasali Pridemage or Trygon Predator and ramp up the number of Rhox War Monks. Or if you think you’ll be playing against a lot of Storm combo it might make sense to leverage the number of Spellstutter Sprites or Meddling Mages to combat that.

So how exactly do you play this beast? Bant Survival has a number of methods to attack the opponent. It can play the aggro-control game by beating down with a (hopefully Exalted) Tarmogoyf or Rhox War Monk, and counter and/or Swords the opponent’s relevant threats. If it lands a Survival of the Fittest it can play the long game and just overwhelm the opponent with good creatures and an avalanche of card advantage created by Survival and Squee, or it can try to go the combo route by powering out the unfair Loyal Retainers + Iona, Shield of Emeria couplet to lock the opponent out. The addition of Loyal Retainers to the deck has really pushed the Bant Survival archetype into overdrive, and has also pushed the card Loyal Retainers into the $75-125 bracket, unfortunately. If you are unable or unwilling to obtain Loyal Retainers, you could also drop Retainers + Iona from the deck and load up on things that might be good in your metagame, such as more War Monks, Pridemages, Spellstutter Sprites, or other useful things like main deck Meddling Mage or Rafiq of the Many.

Playing Against Merfolk
Mono-Blue Merfolk is a relatively cheap and effective deck to build in Legacy, and for this reason it is one of the more commonly played decks. It has a tough time against Naya Zoo, but excels against Blue-based aggro control (such as Threshold and CounterTop variants), and also has decent game against combo. Bant Survival is kind of a Blue-based aggro control deck, but the flexibility outlined above is what gives it game against so many decks. It can be flexible in how it attacks or defends against the opponent’s strategy, and against Merfolk this is no different.

Depending on the build of Merfolk you run into, you will definitely see Force of Will and Daze, and could also see Stifle, Umezawa’s Jitte, and even Back to Basics. Getting a threat Force of Will’ed really isn’t that big of a deal, because you have a good number of threats and also have Force of Wills of your own if you really wanted to punch something through. I would always recommend taking your time if possible to play around Daze, because you’d rather slow play your threats to make sure they resolve rather than recklessly try to curve out as fast as possible. Umezawa’s Jitte is probably the best threat Merfolk has against you, so this should be one of the things that your Spell Snares and Qasali Pridemages are saved for, because an active Jitte can effectively render your creatures all but irrelevant. The second thing you really need to watch out for is Lord of Atlantis, because it provides all of their creatures Islandwalk. You will either want to keep Islands off the board on your side, or more realistically do everything you can to keep Lord of Atlantis off the board on your opponent’s side (Spell Snare, Path to Exile, etc.). All of their other Lords (+1/+1 creatures) are decent, but this is the one you really care about because it creates the ability for them to easily alpha-strike you to end the game in a single turn if the ground seems stalled with creatures.

When sideboarding against Merfolk with my list above, I’d lean towards the following:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Rhox War Monk
-2 Spellstutter Sprite
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Noble Hierarch

Spellstutter Sprite won’t counter much against Merfolk and is smaller than all of their guys. Rhox War Monk is actually pretty good because of the lifelink to buffer against their attacks, and the fact that he’s generally bigger than their guys unless they’ve got a couple of Lords out. Having a total of 6 Swords and Paths will go a long way to keeping their board relatively clean, and Krosan Grip can aid your Pridemages to help out against AEther Vial, Back to Basics, and most importantly Umezawa’s Jitte. While I don’t like siding out Noble Hierarch in general, it’s the weakest remaining card in the deck against Merfolk. I realize that some people would argue for siding out Survival stuff here because of the mana investment, but I would argue that if a Survival sticks you’re going to win the game, by either overwhelming them with card advantage or landing an Iona naming Blue. You could also potentially remove Kira, but I would guess that my opponent would bring in their own Kira from the sideboard, so having your own could be helpful to Legend-rule theirs out of play.

Playing Against Ad Nauseam Tendrils
Depending on the build of ANT you’re squaring off against, you can be a real underdog in game 1. They could be sporting up to 6 Orim’s Chant effects main for protection, which is bad news for Bant Survival’s light protection package. There are really a lot of different permutations of ANT and Burning Wish hybrid decks running around now, so you could also see Duress or Xantid Swarm maindeck. If they don’t have Swarm main I would expect them to board it in against you. When sideboarding against ANT with my list above, I would do the following:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Rhox War Monk
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage
-4 Noble Hierarch

While Spell Snare might not seem great against them, it can still counter Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Cabal Ritual, and whatever else they might have in the 2 slot. It’s not the best option, but you need to assume a more controlling role here to try to stay alive. Similarly, Swords to Plowshares could potentially be dead, but you can’t run the risk of being overrun by a Xantid Swarm (or even a Dark Confidant), so I’d be leaving in 3-4 Swords. Noble Hierarch can provide you with acceleration here, but doesn’t really do anything else, and again is the weakest card. A lot of people will be loathe to side it out but you really would rather have every other card in the deck instead. Kira is decent in the deck here because when paired with Ethersworn Canonist it means your hate creatures can’t be removed by the Chain of Vapor/Deathmark/Slaughter Pact that was sideboarded in against you by the combo player.

When playing this match you need to assume the control role if possible and actively dig for counters with Ponder, while saving Brainstorms for hiding your counters if need be, shuffling away junk you don’t want, or to dig for a counterspell in an emergency. Play this slow and carefully, and if you can keep mana open and then land either land Survival or some Rhox War Monks ideally. Rhox War Monks can push your life to a problematic number for an opposing Storm player if they start swinging early. If you have the early Survival draw you can chain out an Iona to shut off Black or Blue spells from the combo player, and either follow up with your other hate creatures (Meddling Mage, Teeg, Canonist) in whatever order you see fit, or you can dig for Spellstutter Sprites to shut down things like Orim’s Chant or Dark Ritual.

Playing Against Dream Halls
This is one of the few matches where you’ll want to sideboard out Swords to Plowshares, as it does nothing against their deck. Spell Snare is also relatively weak here, countering only Lim-Dul’s Vault. They will probably have 8-10 Duress, Thoughtseize, and Spell Snare effects after sideboarding, as well as 4 Force of Wills, so you’ll have to try to do everything in your power to play the control role and prevent them from busting either a Show and Tell into Progenitus or Show and Tell into Dream Halls, or just hard casting Dream Halls and trying to go off. I would look at sideboarding with the above list like this:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+2 Krosan Grip
-4 Tarmogoyf
-4 Swords to Plowshares

Your anti-combo suite will function well here, as Spell Pierce will be very good at protecting you in the early turns and stopping a quick Show and Tell. If possible try to play around the opposing Spell Pierces and keep mana open. Tarmogoyf is just a random beater that does nothing else against this deck, and because of this all of your creatures that do something else are much better at limiting the opponent’s lines of play. Pridemage can kill Dream Halls, Gaddock Teeg can prevent them from going off with Dream Halls, and Meddling Mage can shut down Show and Tell. Your best bet is to go for the Survival into Iona package if you can find a Survival, and naming Blue will shut them off of both Show and Tell and Dream Halls. When possible keep your mana open to play around Spell Pierce and save your Brainstorms for hiding counterspells against opposing Thoughtseizes and Duresses, or to shuffle away junk you don’t want to see.

It is also worth noting that if you do have 1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress in your sideboard for Merfolk it would also be worth sideboarding in here as well, because it can bounce a Progenitus to the owner’s hand if they are able to force through a Show and Tell.

Playing Against Naya Zoo
Naya Zoo is both a popular and well performing deck, and because of the efficiency and speed of every one of their spells this can be a tough matchup if they get a fast draw. As noted above, if you expect a lot of Naya Zoo in your area it is probably worth ramping up the number of Rhox War Monks and maybe even Loxodon Hierarchs, as these can both present critical life buffers to swing games back your way after the Zoo player comes out fast and aggressive. Loxodon Hierarch in particular can be brutal when landing, because it effectively functions as a 3-for-1 against Zoo, because it negates 1-2 of their burn spells and will also block and kill one of their creatures (or draw a Path to Exile out). When sideboarding with the list above this is what I would recommend:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Noble Hierarch
-2 Ponder

Having access to as many Swords and Paths as possible for sideboarded games is important, as these can knock out early Wild Nacatls and Tarmogoyfs to buy you time to set up, or to clear an opposing Qasali Pridemage from the board if you have a Survival to drop and go nuts with. Kira is great in this matchup as they will have to use two removal spells to get rid of it if they want to be able to combat the rest of your creatures on a one for one basis with their removal spells. Spellstutter Sprite can be great at countering an important Path to Exile or Lightning Bolt from the opponent to try to remove your War Monks, so I would keep them in hand until necessary.

I like to leave in Qasali Pridemage in this matchup, because aside from the Exalted bonus it can provide to your Tarmogoyf or Rhox War Monk it can also destroy Sylvan Library or more importantly Umezawa’s Jitte if the opponent brings it in against you. Ponder is really your weakest card here, so while I don’t like siding out Blue cards that can find cheap answers, it’s actually better to just draw more threats and removal than to have to dig for it when you’re racing against the clock that Zoo presents. Along these lines one might ask why not side out Survival, but if you can land a Survival you should win the game, and Zoo has no counterspells to prevent you from landing Survival if you draw it. Chaining out War Monks or even the Retainers into Iona combo is fantastic here.

Another debatable sideboarding option here is to board out your 4 Force of Will and try to become the midrange deck and just have better threats than your opponent. Instead of siding out Ponders and creatures you could drop the Forces and then just play creatures, removal, and use your Ponders and Brainstorms to dig for removal and Survivals. Pitching any of your Blue creatures to Force can really suck your resources out on the first or second turn here, so it is worth consideration.

Playing Against Goblins
Like Zoo, Goblins is a fast an aggressive deck that you will need to fight to stay alive early and then stabilize by dropping creatures that are bigger than theirs. Tarmogoyf, Rhox War Monk, Swords to Plowshares, Qasali Pridemage, and Force of Will are all very good cards that you have main deck against Goblins, and with the list above we have some decent sideboarding options:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Spellstutter Sprite
-1 Spell Snare

Depending on the build of Goblins you are facing Spell Snare can be very good or very bad. If they are playing some number of things like Stingscourger, Umezawa’s Jitte, Mogg War Marshall, or Warren Weirding in addition to the standard 4 copies of Goblin Piledriver this can greatly increase the value of Spell Snare. Siding it out or not will be based on what you’ve seen and what you expect, but in the example above I’ve sided out 1 copy.

Playing against Goblins is relatively straight forward. You obviously don’t want Goblin Lackey to connect and start dropping creatures in for free, so Swords, Path, and Force are your best friends here. Your opening hands will greatly dictate how these games play out, because for example if you have a Qasali Pridemage you may be far more inclined to let an AEther Vial resolve, or if you are on the play and have a first turn Noble Hierarch to power out a second turn Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf you will probably let a Goblin Lackey resolve and not blink an eye.

My main recommendations here would be to fetch basic lands whenever possible to play around Wasteland, and to use Swords and Paths to handle Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief. Try to save your Force of Wills for Goblin Ringleader if at all possible, because the card advantage it provides can really push the Goblins player ahead. Obviously if you have the Survival draw chaining Loyal Retainers into Iona naming Red can be backbreaking against the Goblins player, and if you have Survival and can buy yourself the turns I would strongly recommend this.

Playing Against CounterTop
As the weeks and months pass by there seem to be more and more CounterTop variants popping up, but not nearly as many people playing the deck in terms of a percentage of the field at large Legacy tournaments. Development is splintering into a lot of different directions, but not nearly as many people seem to be playing it or playing it successfully. The kill condition will almost always be Tarmogoyf plus whatever else (whether it’s Dark Confidant, Vedalken Shackles, Natural Order into Progenitus, etc.), and they will seek to lock out an opponent with Counterbalance coupled with Sensei’s Divining Top.

Against these decks your Qasali Pridemages and Trygon Predator will shine and you will obviously want to bring in whatever number of Krosan Grips you are packing, but what else? The answer is that it really depends on what you’ve seen or expect from their deck. The more non-creature spells they have the stronger Spell Pierce becomes, and if they are playing Natural Order your Meddling Mages can be more potent as well. Depending on your opening hand and how aggressive their build is this can dictate how aggressive you are. Major things to watch out for (besides CounterTop) are Threads of Disloyalty, Vedalken Shackles, Dark Confidant, and Natural Order.

One last thing to note about these decks is that they are relatively slow, and so if you think they are packing Daze it is worth keeping your mana open and playing around their potential Dazes to cut off half of their counterspells and to make sure your spells stick. If you don’t think they are packing Daze then you can push the envelope and try to resolve spells before they have CounterTop in play or maybe when they’re tapped out to avoid Spell Snare if they are running that. Landing a single Survival of the Fittest after baiting with stuff like Tarmogoyf and Rhox War Monk can be a very strong line of play for you that will lead to a quick win.

Playing Against Canadian/Tempo Threshold
Like Goblins, the Threshold player will try to attack your manabase, so if you can help it you should be fetching for basic lands whenever possible, and when fanning open your starting hands keep Stifle and Wasteland in mind when determining if your hand is keepable. Because of this and the Merfolk match I’m considering tweaking the manabase slightly to drop 1 Tropical Island and adding 1 more basic Forest, which will help make your manabase more bulletproof. You realistically don’t need to be fetching multiple Tropical Islands in a game very often, so it merits serious consideration.

Most of the Tempo Threshold decks are only playing Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice for removal, so you need to be weary of how you engage in creature combat in these games. Losing two of your creatures to a Fire/Ice after combat damage can easily lose you a game. Another combat trick to keep in mind is thinking you’ll have a bigger guy than theirs and attacking, only to have the Threshold player Stifle the Exalted trigger from one of your Noble Hierarchs. Be careful and play cautiously here. Also be on the lookout for opposing Submerges from the Threshold player after sideboarding (if they’re good they’ll do it in response to you sacrificing a fetchland to shuffle away your dude). This is how I would sideboard with the list above:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Path to Exile
-2 Ponder
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage

Some people will have a tendency to side in too many Swords/Paths against an opposing Threshold player. I don’t think you need more than 5 or a max of 6, because you can’t target their Nimble Mongooses and the only thing you’ll really need them for is Tarmogoyf and possibly Trygon Predator or Vendilion Clique. Some of the European builds are running Grim Lavamancer, and if you do see that then it will definitely be worth siding the additional Paths. Just don’t go overboard here and end up with dead cards if you can help it.

The Threshold player will have a counterspell base 4 Spell Snares and 4 Force of Wills to deal with your Tarmogoyfs and Survivals, and may be siding in Spell Pierce and/or Red Elemental Blast in lieu of Daze. You have a number of similar size threats to them, but if you can bait and then land a Survival it will push the game out of reach, so take your time in this match and play around Daze or Spell Pierce if you can afford it.

Playing Against Dredge
Similar to the Dream Halls matchup, Tarmogoyf is just a regular dude in this matchup and doesn’t really do anything to cripple the opponent or prevent them from going off like some of your other creatures can. He’s got a big backside and can block or swing through all the opponent’s creatures, but he doesn’t prevent the Dredge player from continuing their game plan. Noble Hierarch accelerates but doesn’t provide much else against a match that you generally don’t need much mana against. Outside of a Breakthrough for 2 mana Spell Snare is also pretty underwhelming in this matchup. With this in mind, this is how I would sideboard with the list above:
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Faerie Macabre
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-3 Spell Snare
-4 Noble Hierarch
-2 Tarmogoyf
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Dredge generally needs their few creatures available to either beat you down or to start generating tokens with Bridge From Below. Your Paths and Swords can be really handy in removing their Ichorids, Bloodghasts, and Narcomoebas from the game to even prevent them attacking or getting tokens. Relic of Progenitus is probably the best anti-Dredge card available, and Faerie Macabre can remove critical cards and is obviously better than what you’re siding out. As for the other cards, Gaddock Teeg can shut down Dread Return, and Rhox War Monk and Loxodon Hierarch can provide a life buffer and a big backside to either hold off opposing creatures or to swing through with the win. Spellstutter Sprite isn’t great here, but it can counter the Chain of Vapors, Pithing Needles, Firestorms, or whatever opposing hate cards the opponent will bring in.

My plan in this matchup is most often to stay alive to either swing through with Rhox War Monk and gain a lot of life, or to land a Survival and pump out the Loyal Retainers into Iona combo and name Black to shut down or dramatically slow down the opponent. If you suspect they will be bringing in Leyline of the Void or Pithing Needle against you to shut down Survival you can always sideboard in Krosan Grip instead of something like Spellstutter Sprite or the 2 remaining Tarmogoyfs.

Playing Against Lands.dec
Depending on the opening hand for the Lands player they will try to come out extremely fast (first turn Manabond, dump hand, start dredging back Life From the Loam), or they will have to take a few turns to set up with Gamble and/or Intuition and start trying to grind out board advantage. In this matchup both Iona and Kira, Great Glass-Spinner are your maindeck trump cards. Kira prevents them from using Maze of Ith and Barbarian Ring effectively, and Iona can just name Green to shut off the Loam engine.

The Lands player will seek to drop their combo pieces and also seek to weaken your manabase. Fetch basic lands to play around Wasteland and use Noble Hierarch to try to play around Rishadan Ports. Their Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale is obviously very good at tying up your mana resources, but it’s not backbreaking if you don’t overextend into it. Play smart and aggressively use your Ponders and Brainstorms to dig for a Survival to try to lock up the game. Here’s how I would look at siding against this match:
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Faerie Macabre
+1 Meddling Mage
-2 Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf (depending on number of Blue cards you want for Force)
-1 Eternal Witness
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Swords to Plowshares

Spell Snare is marginal here because the only thing it counters in their deck is Life from the Loam (which keeps coming back) and potentially Burning Wish if they play that (but that’s mostly relegated to AggroLoam nowadays). Spell Pierce does a better job in the first couple of turns by possibly keeping them off of an early Manabond, Exploration, Gamble, or Intuition. Spellstutter Sprite can also prevent their important 1 casting cost spells from resolving, so it also relevant here. Swords to Plowshares is hit or miss because it can only hit their man lands, but it removes a lot of their win conditions and also serves as land destruction, and can clear out a blocker at a critical juncture. I’m torn on its value because I don’t like sitting around with multiple Swords in my hand here, so I’m currently siding out 1, but that could change based on the exact configuration of the opponent’s deck and the better feel I get for how this plays out. Relic of Progenitus is obviously very powerful for you in this match, but keep in mind they’ll probably be siding in Krosan Grip for your Survivals and graveyard hate.

Other Tips and Strategy
You may notice that I rarely sideboard out Eternal Witness, and this is for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that Witness can easily get back a destroyed Survival once your opponent tries to get rid of it with the hate they have inevitably sided in. The second reason is that it basically acts like a Time Walk against a lot of decks, because it gets back a nice card for you (probably an important creature, a Swords to Plowshares, or a Force of Will) while acting as a blocker or can trade with the opponent’s attacking creature.

Your sideboarding will obviously depend a lot on how you construct your deck and sideboard, as well as what is very prevalent in your local metagame, but hopefully this article has served as an insight into playing against some of the most common matches you’re likely to see. For a lot more discussion on the subject check out the fantastic Bant Survival thread on TheSource, where posters Jak, Waikiki, Kuma, Windux and others have provided a lot of insight. Join us again next time as we’ll delve into some alternative and outside-the-box sideboarding strategies for Bant Survival.

Having a playset of one card signed by the artist is cool, very cool. Having a playset of one card with 4 different pictures from 4 different artists is plain AWESOME.

Try beating this playset of Hymn to Tourach!

When it comes to pimp, Filippo Lietti (aka TroppoRicco) is such an endless source of great stuff.

Last Sunday we played in Badalona this Grand Prix Trial with 75 players. Enric Luzan, as usual, brought his video cam and recorded few games. This time tho, he couldn’t record that many as there were byes for the top4 and I guess they split the money.

Anyways, this are his quarterfinal games against Xavier Muntada.

Top 8 GPT Madrid – Badalona – Xavier Muntada vs. Enric Luzán G1

Top 8 GPT Madrid – Badalona – Xavier Muntada vs. Enric Luzán G2

Top 8 GPT Madrid – Badalona – Xavier Muntada vs. Enric Luzán G3

I don’t know if you guys noticed that we are running a Team Pataners Store (you can find it at the upper menu tabs). Right now we can only offer few designs, and we hope to be adding more really soon.

If there’s a T-Shirt I would wear while playing at GP Madrid would definitely be this “REAL MEN PLAY COMBO” one.

You can buy it at the price of $15.99 (11.65€). Visit our store, click, choose size and you are good to go!

Last Sunday I went to play this GPT for Madrid with my (not so) budget Affinity deck. From the decklist I ran, there’s one card I’m really satisfied with: Perish.

I’m not sure whether or not is the right time to include Perish maindeck. With the uprising hype of Bant decks packing Natural Order / Progenitus, Tarmogoyf, Noble Hierarch, Qasali Pridemage, etc… I believe it’s the time to step forward and be ahead of the metagame.

If you hate Tarmagoyf as much as I do and would love to annihilate them all, Grand Prix Madrid would be the perfect scenario. Some random numbers I can come up with from my metagame predictions:

• GP Madrid attendance (based on nothing xD) = 2000 players
• Average of decks running x4 Tarmogoyf = 70% (Healthy format my ass!)

With those two numbers, you can come up with one idea: THERE’S GONNA BE A LOT OF GOYFS! exactly:

70% of 2000 players = 1400 times 4 = 5600 Tarmogoyf all together in less than 10000 m2.

Now imagine just casting a RL® Perish! OMG, you would make Legacy a healthy format in a matter of seconds!

Last Sunday I had the chance of making 2×1’s and 3×1’s thanks to Perish. Man, that retaliation feeling you got once you see your opponent (with tears in his eyes) placing those hordes of green creatures (I miss you Grizzly Bears!) in his graveyard is just PRICELESS!!!!!

I think I’m gonna My friend Jorge (aka the_juzam_dijnn) has created a Facebook group (join here) named:

I love the smell of Perish in the morning.

Just sayin’, if you don’t play green but black, you’d better play Perish!

I’ve always focused on gathering cards to play combo decks. My only problem is that I like to play with “pimp” cards only. That makes my playable card pool much smaller than average.

Few months ago, I thought it would be a good idea to build up another Legacy deck. Something different! The chosen deck was the so-called “budget” Affinity deck. Well, not so budget for me LOL.

The deck still needs some tunning, but so far is looking as intended xD

TP Affinity 2K10 by piZZero
As a not-so-budget deck to play in Legacy

Sideboard:

Gotta admit that those Perish Japanese Signed ain’t mine. My friend Arnau lend them to me so I could use them at this weekend’s GPT. I know they were originally from JACO and I hope they end up being mine.

Survival of the Fittest has long been one of the most powerful spells available in the Legacy format. Decks such as RecSur, Full English Breakfast, Angry Tradewind Survival, RGB Survival Advantage, Survival Elves, Welder Survival, and countless other variants have all utilized the powerful tutoring capability and overwhelming card advantage that Survival of the Fittest can provide. A relative newcomer to the scene, Bant Survival is the latest in a long tradition of decks that seek to abuse the powerful Green enchantment. Coupling the power of Survival with the strengths of the Bant archetype, this contender has been tearing up European tournaments for the past year and is starting to rear its head across the ocean in the United States now as well.

So what exactly makes up modern Bant Survival? Typically these decks are all Blue/Green/White (Bant) and utilize the most efficient spells Bant colors have to offer. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile provides the most efficient removal in the Legacy format, Force of Will and Brainstorm are some of the most efficient and powerful spells Blue has to offer, and no one could seriously mention creatures without bringing up Tarmogoyf. So what else makes up these decks?

Creatures
Most Survival of the Fittest decks have a tendency to be relatively light on lands, but be very mana hungry to power up Survival and power out creatures. For this reason the older variants often included some mix of mana producers and accelerants in the form of Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Wall of Roots, Quirion Ranger, and/or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. With the Alara Block came the printing of Noble Hierarch, who seems custom made for this deck, as it provides colored mana to accelerate spells out faster, pitches to Survival, and is equipped with the Exalted mechanic to make your creatures bigger in the omnipresent Tarmogoyf standoffs that frequent Legacy. Alara Block also brought another Legacy staple to the scene in the form of Qasali Pridemage, which has really single handedly changed the Legacy landscape. It also is quite mana efficient and equipped with the Exalted mechanic to make your creatures swing harder, but where it really shines is dealing with problematic enchantments and artifacts such as Counterbalance, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Seismic Assault, Survival of the Fittest, Vedalken Shackles, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Arcbound Ravager, Chrome Mox, and countless others. This has balanced the format and has brought back true aggro strategies from the face of extinction (Naya Zoo, for example).

Aside from these Bant staples, the deep card pool in Legacy has nearly limitless options when it comes to Survival applications, so let’s take a look at some of the other creature options when crafting a Bant Survival deck for our local scene.
Rhox War Monk – an efficient body with a big back side out of Lightning Bolt range, the lifelink and pitchability to Force of Will are the key factors that make this a near unanimous choice for Bant aficionados. The more Naya Zoo and aggro decks you see, the more Rhox War Monks you tend to include.
Spellstutter Sprite – while this will never have the power in this deck that it does in Faeries decks, Spellstutter can provide protection from key removal spells, and can also improve the match against Storm-based combo decks. Some oft-seen spells that can potentially be problematic for Bant which Spellstutter Sprite can help address include: Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, Spell Snare, AEther Vial, Grindstone, Stifle (on Loyal Retainers, Qasali Pridemage, or Exalted trigger, for example), Dark Ritual, Orim’s Chant, Silence, Xantid Swarm, Pithing Needle, Relic of Progenitus, and more. The drawback with Spellstutter is that it requires you to keep mana open and not be as aggressive with the deck, but with the aforementioned list of spells that it can counter you can see why it is often included by Bant pilots.
Trygon Predator – this is an absolute beast against some decks, and can really help shore up some of the deck’s weak spots. While Qasali Pridemage is really good at what it does, what it doesn’t do is keep destroying cards every turn like this can. A lonely Trygon can single-handedly wreck the board of an opposing Stax deck, Enchantress deck, Affinity deck, Painter’s Servant decks, and turn around unfavorable matchups once he starts swinging. Predator can also help deal with cards like AEther Vial, Umezawa’s Jitte, and Back to Basics from an opposing Merfolk player, helping to even out an otherwise tough (and common) matchup.
Eternal Witness – card advantage is a key concept of both Magic and Survival decks, and Witness does a fantastic job of providing card advantage. It will most often grab a destroyed or countered Survival of the Fittest or other threat, and can be key in grabbing a timely Brainstorm or Swords to Plowshares.
Vendilion Clique – another efficient body with a useful effect, Clique often finds its way into Bant decks as a 1-2 of, and can help go aggro or fly over ground standoffs. It is very useful against combo and control, but less so against aggro when you’ve spent 3 mana for a creature and your opponent will just spend 1 mana to Bolt or Path it in response to the comes into play ability.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner – the inclusion of this in any main deck serves as protection to removal heavy decks in the field (Naya Zoo, Landstill, Tempo Threshold, BGW, etc.), and it is fantastic at what it does, which is protect your creatures. One notable interaction is also the protection it provides your creatures from Maze of Ith, which is one of the main tools that the powerful Lands.dec has against you.
Loyal Retainers + Iona, Shield of Emeria – while these cards basically do nothing on their own, their interaction with Survival is what makes them extremely powerful, and can often turn losing game states into winning ones. Shutting off all removal from an opponent, or the ability of the Merfolk player to play Blue spells, or the ability for Loam decks to cast Green spells, or Storm combo to cast Black or Blue spells are all extremely powerful interactions that make the inclusion of this two card combo very strong.
Squee, Goblin Nabob – this is a staple of Survival decks as the ability to keep coming back and provide continued fodder for Survival activations means it’s an auto-include.
Genesis – like Squee, Genesis can provide card advantage and also provides a great long game against control decks by bringing back threats from your graveyard, but is relatively mana hungry in a deck without Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. It also doesn’t do much to address problematic matchups and scenarios for Bant Survival in general.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary – the mana boost that this card can provide is noteworthy, but it really only shines when used in conjunction with Anger, Masticore, and/or Genesis. The trend in Survival deck building theory lately has been to exclude as many cards that are Survival dependent as possible (unless the effect is truly broken, like with Iona), so you will rarely see people include Rofellos in their Bant Survival decks as they are currently constructed.
Gaddock Teeg – shutting down all X spells and spells that cost more than 3 mana (including your own Force of Wills) is a very powerful effect in Legacy, as this often cripples combo deck, control decks, Dread Returns, Engineered Explosives, and more. This is very good, but is best used when in conjunction with other hate cards to create a barrier against your opponent’s line of attack.
Meddling Mage – one of the most skill intensive cards in Magic, this can shut down entire strategies or specific lines of play and individual cards that can hurt you. Bant pilots will often include 1-3 copies of this between the main deck and Sideboard, depending on how they feel about using the card, and also how much combo they expect to face.
Ethersworn Canonist – another useful tool in shutting down combo, this can also be used in combination with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner to form a hard lock on any targeted removal of your creatures (but obviously does nothing against mass sweepers such as Firespout).
Rafiq of the Many – this card can often create wins out of nowhere, turning your otherwise 4/5 vanilla Tarmogoyf into a 5/6 double-striking behemoth, or can create single-turn victories by turning Iona into a 8/8 flying double-striking winner. While easily removed, the effect that Rafiq can have with a creature such as Rhox War Monk is undeniably powerful, and curries favor among many Bant players because of the ability to steal wins from otherwise losing positions.
Llawan, Cephalid Empress – while this card is very narrow in application, what it provides is incredibly powerful. The effect that Llawan provides against Merfolk or an opposing Progenitus can make this a very important sideboard card.
Jotun Grunt – the 4/4 body is a nice complement to the graveyard cleaning ability that Grunt provides. He can also recycle threats from your graveyard back into your deck, but is relatively slow at cleaning out an opponent’s graveyard, and does relatively little to prevent a Dredge or Loam opponent from dredging a lot in one turn.
Loaming Shaman – like Grunt, this card provides a powerful effect, but it simply does it once when coming into play, and doesn’t permanently remove Bridge From Belows, opposing Squees, or anything else. It merely pumps them back into an opponent’s library, which might be good for the surprise effect in a single turn, but is not very good over the long haul.
Faerie Macabre – this graveyard removal effect is permanent, and can’t be countered (only Stifled or Trickbinded), so while this relies on Survival being in play to find most often, it usually ends up in Bant Survival sideboards because the other options are also fundamentally flawed.
Trinket Mage – this can find a number of useful artifacts like Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives (or even Grindstone if you wanted to include Painter’s Servant and really try to be cute), but as mentioned with Rofellos, the trend in Survival construction has been to move away from cute tricks and toolbox packages and towards making the deck more consistent and powerful when Survival is not in play.

AEther Vial, Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, or other?
There are a handful of available slots when looking at options besides creatures in Bant Survival, and some people will often fill these slots with either AEther Vial or another form of counterspell or protection. While AEther Vial is great at slipping creatures in under counters and creating cute combat tricks, it really doesn’t do much to advance the agenda of Bant Survival’s strategy, which is to either overrun the opponent with threats or to play out threats and protect them. Another counterspell will go a long ways towards protecting you from the opponent as well as increasing the number of Blue cards to potentially pitch to Force of Will. Daze, Spell Snare, and Spell Pierce are most often under consideration for slots in aggro-control decks, so let’s examine what they can each provide.

When choosing amongst the three options above for additional protection in the deck, one must ask what the spell must do and what it will accomplish in its role. Daze is often best within the first two turns of a game, when forcing through an important early spell or stopping the opponent from curving out an explosive draw in the early turns. This will force you into fetching a Blue producing land very early and set you back a land drop when cast, which must be carefully weighed in a mana hungry but land-light deck such as Bant Survival.

Spell Pierce is relatively limited in that it can’t stop creatures from landing on the board (which will nibble away at your life and thus provide you less turns), but it can also be used to force through an important early spell (like a Blue Duress, essentially), and can also stunt the development of important early plays from opposing decks (such as Counterbalance, AEther Vial, Force of Will, Manabond, etc.). It is naturally very good against combo decks, as they generally rely on either chaining together cheap spells or hitting a certain mana point and then casting a powerful spell (Show and Tell, for example). For this reason it would probably be better served as a sideboard card against these matchups, as Legacy is a creature-centric format in general and this does nothing to address that.

Spell Snare is relatively limited as a counterspell in that it can only stop spells with a converted mana cost of 2, but a large chunk of the Legacy format’s best spells are ringing in at the 2 mana slot. Problematic spells for Bant Survival that could potentially be solved by Spell Snare include: Devastating Dreams, Counterbalance, Qasali Pridemage, Fire/Ice, Hymn to Tourach, Smallpox, Dark Confidant, Engineered Explosives for 2, Umezawa’s Jitte,Tarmogoyf, Lord of Atlantis, Arcbound Ravager, Survival of the Fittest (mirror), Painter’s Servant, Standstill, and a few others. Because of this, I’ve chosen to go with Spell Snare in the listing I present below, as it just does the best job of dealing with these potentially problematic cards, and there is no playing around a Spell Snare like there is by waiting another turn to make a land drop and then play around Daze.

Mana Sources
As noted above, Noble Hierarch is a natural fit as a mana source for this deck, and can help reduce the number of lands to play. Most modern Survival variants play 18-20 lands, depending on what other search and accelerants they sport. In the version below I have 19 lands, which I feel is a good number with the amount of cantrips (Brainstorm and Ponder) also being employed. While any deck may occasionally get mana flooded, it is very important to hit your land drops early with this deck, and also to have enough basic lands to play around Wasteland, Blood Moon, and Back to Basics. There is little reason not to have a solid manabase, because extra lands can always be shuffled away with Brainstorm or Ponder, but lack of lands can lead to game and match losses.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at a sample decklist.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.0, by Jaco 02-01-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Based on the options I’ve laid out above, this is a relatively straight forward main deck, balanced for an open tournament where I’ll expect to face against Aggro, Combo, Control, and any other random decks that you run across in tournaments. There is no over-reliance on Rhox War Monk, Spellstutter Sprite, or Survival, and the deck’s manabase is constructed to be able to fetch any basics I may need and also play very well with Brainstorm and Ponder. Here’s a sample sideboard to examine in conjunction with the deck above.
Sideboard A (15)
3 Spell Pierce
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Meddling Mage
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Loxodon Hierarch

Spell Pierce, Canonist, Meddling Mage, and Gaddock Teeg is a nice suite of cards to bring in against combo, and things like Path to Exile and Rafiq are great against random tribal, aggro, and aggro-control decks. Hierarch is a pretty good card against aggro and combo alike, because the life boost is instant once it comes into play (unlike Rhox War Monk), and can really change the opponent’s calculations on how to deal with your life total. Other great sideboard options are extra Rhox War Monks, Relic of Progenitus, Llawan, Cephalid Empress, as well as catch-all answers like Propaganda, Pithing Needle, and Umezawa’s Jitte. Opponent’s will often target your graveyard and/or Survival of the Fittest, so options like a second Squee or more Eternal Witnesses can also provide value out of the sideboard to offset hate you might face. Like any deck, you’ll want to tailor your sideboard to shore up your weakest matchups that you actually expect to face that day in a tournament.

With these choices in mind you’re now armed with the knowledge of how to construct Bant Survival for your next tournament. Two massive Legacy Grand Prixs are on the horizon, as well as the StarCityGames $5K series, as well as countless large monthly tournaments across Europe and the USA. Join us again soon as we’ll take a look at how to actually play Bant Survival against common matchups you’re likely to see.

David de la Iglesia, lvl 2 DCI judge from Madrid (Spain), has written his first article for Star City Games. It’s free and also a very, very informative read. He talks about the upcoming Legacy Grand Prix in Madrid, complicated card interactions, reports his judging experiences on latest GPT’s, etc…

If you are going to play at 2010′s Eternal event of the year, or if you just got a little interest on what’s going on in Legacy, you shouldn’t miss the chance of reading from this excellent judge.

[Article]: The Justice League – Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition! By David de la Iglesia

In my first article for StarCityGames.com, I’d like to write about what promises to be the event of the year in Spain: the European Legacy Grand Prix. Legacy is my favorite format for many reasons: the huge amount of playable decks, the power-level of some old cards, the complicated rules interactions…

Hope to read more articles from him! Thumbs up for David!

As you might have noticed, lately the website is experiencing serious hosting problems. The hosting provider can’t handle how big the blog’s database has became, and apparently we are using too much resources from their CPU. That’s why you might get this message from time to time:

I’ll be moving the blog soon to a new hosting service. I hope you guys forgive me for the problems this might be causing you.