Winding Constrictor is Great with Energy

Winding Constrictor
Winding Constrictor will be a two drop of choice.

Silly Mike!

He saw the old…

“If you would get one or more counters, you get that many counters plus one instead[.]”

… line as a “bad” thing.

After all, it is pretty easy to not want Winding Constrictor on the battlefield if you imagine yourself playing against Infect. Every usually 1/1 Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, or Inkmoth Nexus starts hitting with extra force, after all.

Mike didn’t think about other counters that “you” get. Sure, it’s bad when you might be acquiring poison counters… But what about energy counters? All of a sudden Winding Constrictor is great again! Winding Constrictor being great at energy, remember.

Winding Constrictor’s “rate”

As a 2/3 creature for two mana — abilities aside — this snake can be considered playable on the merits. It might not be Tarmogoyf, but it is unlikely to be completely outclassed on turn two. With a third toughness, the Constrictor can intimidate “industry standard” 2/1 or 2/2 creatures that you might see in the first two turns of the game; and even “bounce off” of a Sylvan Advocate that rumbles in with vigilance.

Abilities aside, the card provides a reasonably sized body for the cost. But there are two abilities to be discussed…

Winding Constrictor combos

Just think about the first ability in conjunction with Rishkar, Peema Renegade for a moment.

If you start with the Constrictor on turn two, then follow up with the Top Level Podcast preview Elf, you will quickly have a dominating board position. Winding Constrictor will go from 2/3 to 4/5 and Rishkar will be 4/4! Imagine something as simple as playing an Aether Hub as your third land. You would start by getting two energy counters (instead of one energy counter) and still go from there.

Any cards with a +1/+1 counter theme are game, not just Rishkar.

Imagine instead of Rishkar on turn three, you played Evolving Wilds into Greenwheel Liberator. The Greenwheel Liberator would not only trigger its Revolt mechanic, it would get an additional +1/+1 counter, making for a 5/4 creature for just two mana.

Winding Constrictor is just one of several cards that Pro Tour Champion Patrick Chapin and Resident Genius Michael J Flores discuss in this week’s podcast:

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Revealing Rishkar, Peema Renegade

Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Rishkar, Peema Renegade is bursting with combos

The World’s Best Trained Armodon Gnarled Mass

Let’s say you ain’t got nothin’. It’s turn three and you play your Rishkar, Peema Renegade… This new Legendary Elf Druid comes down as a 2/2 with one +1/+1 counter (so a 3/3). That is essentially sized as a Trained Armodon Gnarled Mass. Difference is, this one can tap for G. And any future creatures with any counters on them can also tap for G!

That’s right. “Each creature you control with a counter…” not each creature with a +1/+1 counter (i.e. from Rishkar, Peema Renegade itself)… Any kind of counter! So if you block and get a -1/-1 counter from, say, Infect your now-downsized creature gets to become a Llanowar Elves.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade is part of multiple cycles

We’ve already seen Yehenni’s Expertise from Aether Revolt. Rishkar has apparently got an expertise as well. Based on Sram’s Expertise we’re guessing Rishkar’s Expertise will let you play a three mana card for free.

But who knows?

Actually the Command Zone knows. Check out the Command Zone later today to find out what the other side of Rishkar, Peema Renegade looks like.

All those +1/+1 Counters…

Aether Revolt looks to be thick with +1/+1 counters and +1/+1 counter synergies. Limited Resources revealed Winding Constrictor. It’s hard to imagine a better setup man for Rishkar, Peema Renegade than Winding Constrictor.

  • The Winding Constrictor comes down as a 2/3 on turn two.
  • You play Rishkar, Peema Renegade on turn three; due to Winding Constrictor, Rishkar will deploy four +1/+1 counters! It will be like a mini-Verderous Gearhulk!
  • Winding Constrictor will be 4/5 and Rishkar will be 4/4! More than pure size (which is great for five total mana), you will have additional mana and +1/+1 counters possibilities locked and loaded for future creatures.

All this and more in the recording proper. Check out “Revealing Rishkar, Peema Renegade”:

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Out with a Bang!

out-with-a-bang

Join Patrick Chapin and Michael J. Flores on a Magical review of 2016.

You know if you follow us on Instagram that Eldrazi Aggro is our deck of the year…

Deck of the year! Creature of the year! Planeswalker of the year! Even… Patron of the year? Get ready! New episode TONIGHT

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… But what about other categories?

Can Michael dislodge Patrick’s call for creature of the year?

How about Planeswalker, Artifact, or Sorcery?

In addition to their calls for the year’s best decks, cards, and even players this podcast is a rare master class in deck game design and game theory.

For instance, why is Yawgmoth’s Will an interesting card in Napster but not an interesting card in Vintage? Or, why was Cascade interesting in Standard but generally combo-abusive as an end point in larger formats?

Or, why should R&D explore more “Eldrazi Temple”-type cards even as it is forced to ban the “Eye of Ugin” style?

One way to find out:


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Breaking Oath of Ajani

Oath of Ajani
Oath of Ajani is a strategy-specific mana accelerator that might just change everything.

Decks that want to play their Planeswalkers early will want to play Oath of Ajani early.

Decks that have a lot of creatures might want to cash in on Oath of Ajani by playing it late(r).

Some decks have both lots of Planeswalker and lots of creatures!

The most obvious use case is to play your Oath on turn two… Then follow up immediately with a turn three Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Lots of decks fold to a Gideon when you play him on the usual schedule… But turn three? That is going to be a straight up game winner.

Cheating mana with Oath of Ajani

Oath of Ajani might be even crazier when paired with Oath of Nissa, plus Planeswalkers that can produce mana. Here’s an example:

  • Open on Oath of Nissa for G.
  • Turn two: Oath of Ajani; between these two Gatewatch Oaths, it is now really easy to cast Planeswalkers
  • Turn three play Chandra, Torch of Defiance. You can [+1] Chandra to add RR to your mana pool… And then immediately play Nissa, Voice of Zendikar!

How would this work?

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar [normally] costs 1GG to play. But because of Oath of Ajani, Nissa costs effectively GG. Oath of Nissa lets you spend mana of any color to cast Planeswalkers. Ergo Chandra’s RR can pretend to be GG. So… “GG” (opponent)!

This is a reasonably tame use case. What if you went G, GW, 2BU instead? Discounts and rainbows are both at your command between Oath of Nissa and Oath of Ajani.

In any case, this is a heck of a turn three! You got to tick up the loyalty on Chandra and probably will have a Plant token to block. Next turn, with a land drop, you will have access to at least four mana (six with Chandra) meaning you can easily deploy two four mana Planeswalkers; maybe an even bigger payday!

Buffing Creatures with Oath of Ajani

The Oath isn’t quite a Crusade. Creatures have to be in play when you play the Oath to get the buff; but it is worth noting that the card is reasonably cheap, and putting a bunch of +1/+1 counters on an undetermined number of creatures is definitely something you might want to do.

We can see playing Oath of Ajani in a regular creature deck… But also in Planeswalker decks that produce lots of token creatures. It can be good friends with 0/1 Plant tokens, 2/2 Knights, Liliana’s Zombies, etc.

But wait! There’s more!

If you haven’t subscribed to the Top Level Podcast Instagram yet, what are you waiting for? Can you afford to miss the impending Flores Swimsuit Calendar?

In the meantime, at least check out our podcast “trailers” … This week’s mostly talked about another Aether Revolt card: Tezzeret, the Schemer.

New podcast up on toplevelpodcast.com tomorrow! Here's an early look:

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Okay, give “Breaking Oath of Ajani” a listen now 🙂

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The Advantages of Dark Intimations

Dark Intimations
Before we dig into Dark Intimations…

Instagram!

Top Level Podcast is now on Instagram! Check out these two teasers for tonight’s episode:

A sneak peek into this week's episode…

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So… No swimsuit calendars (yet) but some fun, actually podcast related stuff for now.

Dark Intimations

Like one of the Instagram videos says, Mike is a little noncommittal on this one; Patrick just likes it. Here’s why…

Dark Intimations costs five mana. Its front side produces four cards:

  1. The opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker.
  2. The opponent discards a card.
  3. You return a creature or planeswalker from your graveyard to your hand.
  4. You draw a card.

Patrick’s argument is that, five mana against five mana, Dark Intimations far outstrips Tidings; Tidings was of course a Staple in Standard with “just” the text “Draw four cards” on it.

Let’s set aside for a moment the possibility you don’t actually get four cards when you cast Dark Intimations. Obviously you will sometimes cast this card when you don’t have a creature or planeswalker in your graveyard, or your opponent doesn’t have any cards in hand. That’ll happen sometimes… And sometimes you will get a full four in a fashion that compares favorably to Tidings.

The argument is that while drawing a card is approximately the same as drawing a card, forcing the opponent to sacrifice a creature or planeswalker is worth more — in the range of 1B or 2B. Moreover, returning a creature or planeswalker to your hand is more powerful, generally, than plucking a random card off the top of your deck.

The “Bolas planeswalker” clause makes this card very interesting. The assumption is that you cast Dark Intimations prior to the Bolas planeswalker (powering it up)… But you don’t have to in order to get the bonus. For instance, you can discard Dark Intimations to Tormenting Voice or Cathartic Reunion just to load up Bolas.

Lots more from Aether Revolt in this podcast including:

  • What Mike wants to Disallow
  • How Patrick flips Mike’s opinion on Battle of the Bridge
  • How quickly you can win with Pia’s Revolution
  • Building your own Cursed Scroll with Quicksmith Rebel

Give “The Advantages of Dark Intimations” a listen!

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Heart of Kiran and Three New Planeswalkers

Heart of Kiran
Heart of Kiran is one of the exciting new vehicles from Aether Revolt.
We know from Smuggler’s Copter how good a two mana vehicle can be.

Aether Revolt is pushing that limit even more with Heart of Kiran. Make no mistake… This card might be bananas. Imagine playing Heart of Kiran on turn two, then following up with Liliana or Nissa on turn three. You can slam with the Heart of Kiran and still gain ground on the battlefield by destroying a threat or making a Plant.

There are two important things to take away from this card:

  1. You basically get to access Planeswalker loyalty twice per turn. The first use is the regular one; the second is a swing with Heart of Kiran.
  2. Because Heart of Kiran has vigilence, it can block. Got a spare loyalty? You can spring a 4/4 blocker on demand. The best thing? At least early in the Heart’s career, you may be able to steal a body or two.

Some of the cards in Aether Revolt — most notably Ajani Unyeilding — imply a Planeswalker collective deck. Heart of Kiran might be great in that kind of deck, a two drop that comes down faster than any Planeswalker in Standard, and capable of thriving in a context rich with loyalty.

As explosive as the loyalty-leeching alternate crew cost may be, the regular crew cost on this card is challenging. Crew 3 is much harder to hit than Crew 1; Nissa was already struggling in a Smugger’s Copter-first format, but at least Gideon could make 2/2 creatures. Now even [one of] Gideon’s tokens need assistance. Not a fatal flaw to this card at all… But something, certainly, to be wary of as you select your creatures.

More, and three (!!!) new Planeswalkers here:

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Yahenni’s Expertise and the Aether Revolt Spoilers

Yahenni's Expertise
Yahenni’s Expertise is like a Languish married a Bloodbraid Elf
It’s that time again! Top Level Podcast’s favorite time… Spoiler season.

Early Aether Revolt spoilers bring us three new cards to talk about: Yahenni’s Expertise, Trophy Mage, and Scrap Trawler.

Yahenni’s Expertise

  • -3/-3 hits a surprisingly sweet spot in the current Standard. Not only is -3/-3 for all creatures not all that bad for 2BB, tons of the best creatures in Standard have three toughness, like Reflector Mage and Spell Queller.
  • While Yahenni’s Expertise doesn’t give the full -4/-4 that Languish does, the additional ability to cast a card for no additional mana might make this card a powerhouse. For example, you can sweep the board and cast a card drawing spell in one move. In Modern, you might play Yahenni’s Expertise and pop an Ancestral Vision!
  • The secondary ability on Yahenni’s Expertise can act as a kind of color fixing. Don’t be surprised if players cheat a little with this card, splashing additional colors they wouldn’t easily be able to cast.

Trophy Mage

  • Trinket Mage and Treasure Mage* have a new cousin!
  • The number of cards you can find with this is huge, varied, and highly flexible. For instance you can lock some opponents out with Ensnaring Bridge… And lock others out with Crucible of Worlds. Psst… Oblivion Stone costs three mana.

Scrap Trawler

Four words “Even. More. Card. Advantage.”

Our first stab at Aether Revolt:

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* Incidentally, Patrick made Top 8 of PT Paris a few years ago packing Treasure Mage for Mindslaver and Wurmcoil Engine only!

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How Do You Get to be the Best in the World?

Best in the World
How do you get to be the best in the world?

Happy Thanksgiving from Top Level Podcast!

In this very different episode Michael and Patrick trade a combination of old (even apocryphal) stories that have shaped their perspectives as players and thinkers.

You know, like…

  • There exists a noteworthy playtest technique that Mike once swore by. It isn’t for everyone… But it was — at least in the story that converted Mike — used by the best player in the world at the time.
  • Sometimes you have a 10% Game One matchup. Consequently you have to jam 8/15 sideboard cards in for a common opponent. Knowing this, just how often do you have to win to make up for that bad Game One?
  • In smaller formats you can sometimes make your main good against Rock and Paper, and use your sideboard to shore up Scissors. We discuss a variety of of sideboard strategies from historical, successful, decks.
  • Say I told you Canopy Spider is better than Bottle Gnomes against Jackal Pup… Could you tell me why?
  • Esper Charm is super flexible. One mode allows you to destroy an enchantment. Why might you ignore that “Get Out of Jail Free” card against onetime boogeyman Bitterblossom? Hint: It wasn’t all that free.
  • How to react when the opponent Disenchants your Necropotence
  • Dark Confidant. Bob. The Great One. Almost universally acknowledged as one of the best two drops of all time. But Mike tends to let Bob live. We discuss different ways to approach removing a Dark Confidant. Patrick has a wonderful, if non-intuitive, strategy around hand destruction when playing against Bob.
  • “I have made a terrible mistake.” Mis-judging the opponent’s archetype based on which lands they play can be a killer. Mike and Patrick share sad and happy war stories, respectively.
  • Can you beat a guy with seven Counterspells in his hand?

Time to Level Up!

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Karn Liberated and the Answer to a Blood Moon Victory

Karn Liberated
Say Blood Moon wins the last big Modern event. What’s the plan? How about we go UrzaTron with 4 Karn Liberated?
Before we start…

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Okay… So part of this is just Tom Ross. How is Tom Ross a real person / Magic: The Gathering player? Tom’s reaction to Blood Moon winning Grand Prix Dallas was to play an even slower deck that relied on not just nonbasic lands… But getting three particular nonbasic lands onto the battlefield!

Part of it is that Tom correctly assessed that people would prepare for Blood Moon decks, maybe making decks good against anti-Blood Moon decks that much better. It turned out he was right!

G/W Tron over G/R Tron

The main [deck] reason to play green-white UrzaTron instead of the more traditional green-red build is Path to Exile. That is, Tom played Path to Exile over Pyroclasm in the starting sixty.

Three copies of a spot removal card is hardly the whole point, though. Not only does the Tron deck manage Path to Exile better than almost any other deck (who cares if the opponent gets one extra basic land when you are tapping yours for three?), it makes much better use of the white mana… Just elsewhere.

  • Rest in Peace – Tom’s sideboard featured Rest in Peace, a powerful supplement to the main deck’s Relic of Progenitus and another great spell against Dredge.
  • Blessed Alliance – Blessed Alliance is a really flexible card here that really blunts the advantage Burn decks have often had against Ramp ones. Blessed Alliance doesn’t just counter a Boros Charm, it can surprise the opponent with a Wurmcoil Engine or smite a Tarmogoyf.

Seven is big, and they just get bigger

The natural one-two-three is Urza’s Tower, Urza’s Power Plant, and Urza’s Mine in some order. That allows you to tap for seven mana with just three lands, or the cost of a Karn Liberated.

On eight mana you get Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and ten mana gives you Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Seemingly every play from there allows you to go “over the top” of a fair opponent’s game plan. It’s just about hitting your lands, and then landing almost any hitter to win.

Karn Liberated is only one answer to Blood Moon

There are a ton of direct answers to Blood Moon in Tom’s deck, incidentally… Karn can remove a Blood Moon from the battlefield, as can either Ugin or Ulamog. Casting those cards might be tough under a Blood Moon, though (and World Breaker might be even tougher with its colored mana in seven). However Oblivion Ring costs just three mana to start. If Tom is not under substantial life points pressure, he can work an Oblivion Ring to really asymmetrical advantage. It can free up his lands from under Blood Moon easily, regardless.

The deck has a good number of answers to obvious threats and strategies. Main deck Relic of Progenitus can give Dredge fits, while Spellskite will have an Infect player’s head scratching. Tom’s deck isn’t necessarily about locking out a game forever… Some of these tools are just there to buy time; remember – given a window to make a play, it’s unlikely there is one on the other side of the table better than one of Tom’s.

Plenty of G/W Torn, but More Modern in “Karn Liberated and the Answer to a Blood Moon Victory”

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Is Skred Red a Prison Deck?

Skred
When recording this episode, Patrick and Mike didn’t even know Skred Red was going to win the GP.

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Patrick is in NYC this week, so the Top Level Podcast boys have the rare opportunity to podcast IRL, sitting next to one another.

For our (almost) two year anniversary, Chapin and Flores chat about the Grand Prix Dallas Modern Top 8 as it happens. Spoilers! They don’t know who wins (yet). Patrick loves Grixis (surprise surprise); Mike cheers for longtime friend Phil Napoli (to no avail); and both love-hate the Skred Red deck [that ends up winning it all].

So how about those twenty Snow-Covered Mountains?

Skred Red in the Modern Metagame

Kevin Mackie’s Skred Red deck is ultimately a really nicely positioned metagame deck. Going into Grand Prix Dallas, Dredge was considered one of the top decks. What was Mackie’s response? Four — count ’em four — copies of Relic of Progenitus main. How do you like that, Dredge opponent? Well even if Dredge manages to go off prior to (or through) a Relic of Progenitus, he has Anger of the Gods main, too!

Anger of the Gods exiles creatures as it sweeps them. That means that no matter how many Prized Amalgams you get, Mackie’s sorcery kills them all, dead, forever. Exile!

The combination of Relic of Progenitus and Anger of the Gods really suppress the Dredge deck’s plan.

But what about people who actually want to cast their cards? Mackie has Blood Moon for them!

Eternal Scourge in Skred Red

Eternal Scourge
Spoilers! Mike doesn’t know what Eternal Scourge does.

“This is the best Skred Red deck I’ve ever seen.”
-Patrick

Aside from the Prison-esque elements, Mackie innovates the Skred Red archetype by adding Eternal Scourge. Not only is Eternal Scourge great against point removal (you can almost always buy it back easily), you can “make your own Call of the Herd”.

Like, imagine your Eternal Scourge dies in combat rather than being exiled by being targeted by removal… The fact that this deck plays Relic of Progenitus means Mackie can set it up to buy back even when it goes to the graveyard per normal!

The card is actually just great against almost anything that relies on point removal to control the board. A Blood Moon board control deck will often play many, many turns. Eternal Scourge helps Skred Red stall into those long games and gives it a reasonably large — even inevitable — threat that can actually win the game, given sufficient time.

Check out our take on even more of the Dallas Modern metagame in “Is Skred Red a Prison Deck?”:

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