Table Manners: Rise #2

I’d like to take this introduction space to explain the title I chose for this series. But first, let me explain what it is about this game that I love so much: it’s the people who play it. Magic is a social game, beyond the simple fact that it takes at least two to play a game (unless you play, as I did when my childhood friends got tired of indulging me, two or three decks against each other at once by yourself (it was my fault, really, bringing a Ravager deck to a casual fight)). Some of my best Saturday afternoons growing up were spent with a few other guys circled around an ever-growing sprawl of cards.

Every game shop has its own little community, and there are plenty of online groups that function just as well. All I did last spring was hang out on my clan’s Skype channel, playing and watching and commenting along with some simply fantastic players.

Every time one player sits across from another, the moment they shake hands, it’s as if war were declared. This is not Bobby Fischer’s chess, however. The object is not “to crush the opponent’s mind.” The point is to have fun. And sometimes — often, in fact — the best man doesn’t win. You’ll notice I wrote “best man” (sorry, ladies, but I’m afraid I have to go with the majority here ^^;;), not “best player.” Technical skill is important, but if seven years of playing this game at a competitive level have taught me anything, it’s that nothing is more important than being polite. Without that, winning just doesn’t matter.

I’ll tell you what does matter: the handshake matters at the beginning of the match when it says “I recognize you as my equal,” just as much as when, at the end, it proclaims “nothing has changed.” “Good game” has nothing to do with whether the game was ‘good’ or not — though even I’m not above the occasional wry remark, I still say “GG” after every game. It means, “thank you.” I always wish my opponent luck, whether in the next round or in their next draft because I’m aware that of my victory or loss was to some extent due to chance.

A polite opponent will make even the most ridiculously poor draws bearable, if not downright pleasant; conversely, a game in which one’s deck runs like a well-oiled machine into the opponent’s solar plexus will seem an arduous chore because of having to block out his incessant, childish whining. Though the greater Magic community consists mostly of decent, mature individuals (another reason to love the game is that so many players continue through marriage and parenthood — and a few even manage to live balanced lives!), there will always be trolls. My advice to you: Don’t. Feed. The Trolls. No matter how wrong they are, and no matter how hilarious it would be to incite them, the only way to be truly better than the trolls is to ignore them. They don’t deserve your regard.

It’s an absolute pleasure when I come across a player who just wants to have fun playing cards. So I try my best to do the same for others. “Table Manners” isn’t just an extremely clever pun for one’s drafting habits. Being polite, being a decent person, matters to me, and that’s why I write beneath those words. They matter.

Well, that’s quite the curve. Unlike many (non-blue) decks in this format, this deck will prefer being on the play, as those early levelers are just a beating. I’m rather fond of Suffer the Past, but it ultimately can’t replace any card in the deck. The sole exception is Pathrazer, which, though admittedly expensive (even for Rise), is a legitimate win-condition, something I felt the deck needed. Other possible inclusions would be Goblin Tunneler, for its synergy with Bloodthrone Vampire, and Ancient Stirrings for fixing and digging for Eldrazis. Inquisition will likely come in against blue decks, where it will be most effective.

R1G1 – choose to play

Such a sweet hand, with two bombs and removal. There are even three lands! Still, this hand wants to draw two different sorts of land to be effective, and we can’t count on that. It hurts, but we mull.

Though far from good, this hand can play just about any card we’ll draw and is certainly better than a random five.

Unfortunately, our opponent plays a Venerated Teacher to put his Zulaport Enforcer beyond the range of our Wrap in Flames, and since we don’t draw enough creatures to fuel Vampire, we lose to the evasive 5/5 in short order.

SB – Inquisition will be quite good against his UB deck, as almost all his cards are vulnerable to it. Pathrazer is slower than I’d like, so it gets the boot.

R1G2 – again, we choose to play

This is a fine hand. If we can draw a land in the first three or four turns, the rest of the acceleration will take us all the way. The great part is, all that mana-boosting still leaves some decent green bodies to battle with.

We haven’t played a land yet. We obviously play Predator, but the question is, which land to leave untapped? The “safe” play is to leave a Mountain, as we can be fairly sure our opponent will attempt to level on his turn, and trading a Spawn token to Heat Ray his leveler is a fine deal indeed. The thing, though, is that we don’t really care about his having a 3/3, or a 5/5. We’ll be having a 12/14 soon enough, unless he can do something about it. Playing Inquisition now is better since it means he can’t surprise us with anything later, top-decks notwithstanding.

Boys and girls, this is why we look both ways before we smash some face.

As anticipated, he did have disruption. Things might have gone differently in an alternate universe, but in this reality we won with a 12/12 trampler.

SB – out with Essence Feed, as it’s one of the weaker cards. We add in Suffer the Past to deal with some of his recursion (he’d shown us Cadaver Imp and Mnemonic Wall), while still functioning as a Drain Life effect.

R1G3 – put on draw

Cutthroat is reason enough to keep this hand, but the possibility of an early Conscription (I recall something about trample and deathtouch . . .) make this quite good.

He does manage to kill the Cutthroat, but Conscription manages to kill him. 4th pick, people.

Our next opponent was the impetus for the introduction of this article, just a genuinely nice player, and a fan to boot. It so happens he (if you’re reading it, dear opponent, please correct me if I’m wrong!) grabbed both Keening Stones, playing them in a UR Control build. Unfortunately for him, the matchup favors me heavily, but (s)he’s rather up-beat about it.

R2G1 – we’re on the play

This is a clear keep. Even if we don’t hit a Mountain soon, the abundance of our mana will make Null Champ a game-winning threat in no time. But, how do we play it out? Do we play the Champ on Turn 2, or just level Treespeaker? In the latter case, we’ll have five mana to play and level Champ on Turn 3, but that’s when we really want to be swinging with a 4/2. Instead, the correct line of play is to cast Treespeaker on Turn 1, Null Champion on Turn 2 (swing for 1), then, on Turn 3, level both our creatures (first the Elf, then the Null).

We win the game with green things and Wrap in Flames, though our opponent puts up a good fight.

R2G2 – we’re put on the draw

This is a clear mulligan, as neither of our spells does very much on its own. I don’t mind keeping the occasional 5-lander, especially on the draw, but this won’t cut it.

Much, much better; the presence of Snake Umbra and a two-drop alone makes this viable. Ophidian FTW!

Sadly for us, he has the Regress for our Vampire, and we lose to an acute lack of Naturalize against his Keener.

R2G3 – choose to play

This is absolutely juicy, and all the more so on the play. It’s a keeper.

Unfortunately, our opponent kills both our levelers with a Staggershock, but he’s got nothing at all to follow it. Ondu Giant deals something like ten damage, all by itself. I’m pretty sure he’s got Lay Bare, so we play around it, just in case. When he (mostly) taps out for a Frostwind Invoker, we play the Beastbreaker we’ve been holding, level, and start swinging with a 6/6 the next turn.

Again, our opponent is graceful and good-humored, even after taking what a lot of players would call a cheap loss. I can’t stress how much this sort of thing means to me — it really makes the game worth playing.

R3G1 – we choose to play

I forgot to get the screenshot of this hand during the game, and of course MODO chooses that replay to throw away. =p

We keep a mediocre hand with two colors and an early creature (Null Champ, 2 Forest, Swamp, Conscription, Pathrazer, Sarkhan. I think). It’s mediocre because we don’t have much to follow up that Null Champ if he can deal with it. Unless he’s got an unusually fast start, though, we should be fine. Oh, and because of scouting, we know he’s playing the Defender deck.

Okay, we’re obviously in a great position here, as there are only a couple of red or green cards in the format that can help him deal with a single 5/5 dragon, and only Disaster Radius will clear away two. Still, it’s important to play as correctly as possible, even when it won’t make or break the game. So, let me ask you: which creature becomes a dragon? Conventional thinking is to improve the least important creature on our board. In this case, however, the least important isn’t the smallest. Upgrading the Nest Invader instead of the Spawn token gives us another Dragon token, as well as the opportunity to play Conscription if we draw a land next turn. And besides, the 2/2 isn’t invading through his 3/3 any time soon.

So I hear dragons win games. Rawr.

No boards for this guy. His deck is pretty slow, so Pathrazer will be just fine. Our only real concern is building up enough force to punch through, but either of our bombs accomplishes that nicely.

R3G2 – we’re put on the play

We keep a very land-heavy hand because the combo of Vampire and infinite tokens is really that good. True, Vampire is fragile for a short while, but I’m loath to mulligan on the play.

We proceed to draw many, many lands, and then . . .

SARKHAN THE MAD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH MHUAAHAHAHAH

…sorry ^^;;

CONCLUSION

Alright, so this “archetype” thing clearly isn’t working out. I swear Levelers hasn’t been open for at least the last dozen drafts I’ve run. The truth is, I do cherry-pick these drafts; every week I’ll draft a handful of times, usually over the weekend, and hopefully at least one of them includes A) three rounds, B) a technically instructive draft, and C) at least a few interesting tactical decisions to showcase. There’s really no point in writing an article if there’s nothing to talk about. Some weeks are better than others, and while I’d really love to show you guys around all the different archetypes, I really haven’t had very many drafts that fit all three of those qualifications. This one does.

Some notes:

-Conscription is GOOD. As with any other creature enchantment, one needs to be wary of disruption, but a well-timed Eldrazi Conscription creates an incredible threat instantaneously (albeit at sorcery speed =p). Most of the answers to Eldrazi in the set only get played on their controller’s turn, so if they haven’t been saving that Vendetta, there’s +10 trample damage and -2 permanents getting thrown at their face out of nowhere. Let me put it this way: Ulamogs Crusher is good, right? Now add +5/+5, haste and trample. Yeah.

-So are dragons. The best card in the entire format is a 4/4 black flyer named Drana. Oh, and she also kills things, which makes her bigger while she’s at it. Besides being BFFs with Viscera, what makes her especially dangerous is that there are a grand total of two removal spells that kill her by themselves (yes, one could double Last Kiss, and Induce Despair requires an appropriately large creature), and both of them are red. So, while 5/5 dragon tokens are susceptible to the black removal that can’t touch Drana, a measly Flame Slash won’t shoot them down either. And Sarkhan is usually good for at least two (he can also “shrink” the occasional game-winning Eldrazi!).

-It’s a real pleasure playing against people who realize this is just a game, the point of which is to have fun, and that losing doesn’t have to get in the way of that.

This is all I’m looking for

BONUS ROUND

Remember that time, when I said that a draft needed to hit those three points to make a good article? Well, here’s one that didn’t. I think you’ll have some fun with it, regardless.