Taste the Rainbow

Taste the Rainbow

With the third Melbourne Highlander league wrapping up its final round, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the deck I've run to a 6-1 finish in the rounds with the top 8 to come.

I haven't played Highlander all that long, getting into it a month or so before the first Melbourne league, but it's very quickly become my favourite format.
I started off playing White Weenie in the first league and narrowly missed the top 8 in the top 8 play offs.

In the second league I ran Zoo list pretty close to the list Highlander players know as 'Karl Zoo', deservedly named for Karl Eyre who's been running the list for many years and has the folder full of Moxen winnings to back it up with.
The deck is clearly good and was very popular in that league with, I believe, 6 basically carbon copies of it floating around and 2-3 making the top 8 and Karl piloting it to the top spot.

I liked the deck well enough but felt there were aspects to it that didn't match my playing style (I could never run a Zoo list without lightning bolt for example) so when I scrubbed out rounds 5 and 6 putting me out of top 8 range, I decided to spice it up a bit and swap out the Stripmine/Wasteland points package for a Time Walk and a Geist of Saint Traft, adjusting the mana base accordingly.
I also cut the Elspeth, Knight-Errant for Falkenrath Aristocrat cos the card's sweet.  Better than Elspeth? Maybe not, but it's sweet I tell you!
Elspeth's my girl but the deck doesn't really support 4 drops very well and I really wanted to smash face with Falkenrath so the lady had to go.

 

Turned out that Time Walk tends to win the game on the spot if you have anything resembling a board presence and even just cast as an Explore early can put you very far ahead.  Geist is also no slouch.  Backed up by Ghor-Clan Rampager, Colossal Might and Selesnya Charm it can put the game away on its own very fast.
I liked the changes immediately but after the league, decided I still wasn't completely happy with it and set my eyes on the equipment package.

Normal Zoo runs Jitte, Skullclamp, Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift as its major points package, along with Grafter Wargear as an additional equipment target.
Clamp and Jitte are both inherently powerful Magic cards but ironically, I felt that Wargear was actually the best equipment in the deck a lot of the time.
Jitte is very slow in Zoo and it feels a lot like a sideboard card, coming out in a lot of matchups.  Clamp is very good but the deck actually runs very few X/1s so it only really shines against control where they have to kill your creatures.
Gift and Mystic are obviously only there as tutors so if their targets can go, so can they.

Clamp and Jitte are busted Magic cards, no doubt, but I decided to bench them for a bit and started play testing with this bad boy:

Turns out Ancestral Recall is also super busted, who'd have thought?
At this point I swapped out the entire removal package (Path, Journey and Chained to the Rocks) for damage based red removal which doubles as creature, planeswalker and face removal and added two value creatures in Dark Confidant, because free cards are good, and Snapcaster Mage, because ACalling twice is better than ACalling once.
The mana requirements were now fully five colour so the utility lands in Kessig Wolf-Run and Slayer's Stronghold had to go as I needed more coloured mana sources.

The third league was starting so it was time to run my new deck through the paces:
Super agro? Yup.
Super greedy? You bet!
Plays Falkenrath Aristocrat? Naturally.
Upsets people's Zoo playing sensibilities?  Woo yeah!

It was good to go, the deck was definitely me.

The deck I ended up running in league three is a variant that looks like this:

Creatures(26):	Land(22):	Spells(12):
Deathrite Shaman	Tundra	Ancestral Recall ****
Noble Hierarch	Tropical Island	Time Walk ***
Goblin Guide	Volcanic Island	Chain Lightning
Experiment One	Scrubland	Lightning Bolt
Sunblade Elf	Bayou	Lightning Helix
Soldier of the Pantheon	Savannah	Boros Charm
Figure of Destiny	Plateau	Selesnya Charm
Steppe Lynx	Taiga	Tribal Flames
Skyshroud Elite	Sacred Foundry	Colossal Might
Kird Ape	Temple Garden	Mental Misstep
Loam Lion	Stomping Ground	Green Sun's Zenith
Wild Nacatl	Forest	Rancor
Scavenging Ooze	Misty Rainforest
Snapcaster Mage	Bloodstained Mire	Sideboard(15):
Dark Confidant	Arid Mesa	Path to Exile
Strangleroot Geist	Marsh Flats	Journey to Nowhere
Flinthoof Boar	Scalding Tarn	Council's Judgment
Fleecemane Lion	Flooded Strand	Price of Progress
Tarmogoyf	Verdant Catacombs	Red Elemental Blast
Qasali Pridemage	Windswept Heath	Pyroblast
Porcelain Legionnaire	Wooded Foothills	Ancient Grudge
Geist of Saint Traft	Mana Confluence	Seal of Cleansing
Knight of the Reliquary		Destructive Revelry
Loxodon Smiter		Tariff
Falkenrath Aristocrat		Ethersworn Canonist
Ghor-Clan Rampager		Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
		Grafdigger's Cage
		Rest in Peace
		Zealous Persecution

The deck may look similar to normal Zoo but it plays and feels very different.
There are 12 cards that are different from the standard Zoo list:

Goblin Guide
Experiment One
Snapcaster Mage
Dark Confidant
Geist of Saint Traft
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Chain Lightning
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Helix
Tribal Flames

The removal package changes meant that I have 18 points of direct burn in the main deck plus Snapcaster Mage for re-use and Price of Progress in the side board.  I've ended many games by burning people out.
I also added two more 1 drops in Goblin Guide and Experiment one to speed the deck up a bit more. 
I've been happy with Experiment One but have somewhat of a dilemma with Goblin Guide.  The card is as aggressive as you can get but the issue with it is that it draws control decks was too many cards due to their deck manipulation.  You also can't side it out against control since that is where you need your 1 drops the most, hence the dilemma.
I'm sticking with it for now but feel I might swap it out for an Isamaru which while slower, still performs well.
In hind sight, one mistake that I made was not cutting the Knight of the Reliquary.  The card is still fine and often quite large but with the removal of all 4 utility lands from the list, he's just a big, dumb idiot in the new deck which isn't what you want your 3 drops to be in Highlander.

Luckily, Khans of Tarkir have introduced a slew of very powerful multi-coloured creatures that I've started testing in the 3 drop slot.
The three cards I've looked at are Mantis Rider, Savage Knuckleblade and Anafenza, the Foremost. 
Of these, Anafenza is not going to make the cut but Mantis Rider definitely is and Knuckleblade is likely going to take the Loxodon Smiter slot.
The fact that both of these have/can have haste, along with flying on the Rider, is a huge upgrade from Knight, it just remains to be seen how often I can cast Knuckleblade with haste.
The addition of two more blue cards has pushed the mana base again so I will also be cutting the last basic Forest for a City of Brass to sure it up a bit.

The only other card from Khans that caught my eye is Blood-soaked Champion and were he in any other colour he'd be a windmill slam addition for the deck.
Unfortunately, not even I am greedy enough to add a black 1 drop to a Zoo list.

In the rounds of this league I played against Scapeshift, Hermit Druid, 2 Bant lists, BUG control, UWR delver and 4 colour midrange and the main deck has been solid throughout.
The round I lost was to James playing BUG control and while I did get destroyed 1-3, there were definitely mulligans and flooding at least partially involved.
BUG is a very good deck when played well but I think the matchup is a lot closer than that match indicated.
I've been particularly happy with the deck's performance against Bant midrange which was always a problematic matchup before.
White Weenie basically scoops to the deck and with normal Zoo I often found myself getting real close, yet not close enough.
The addition of burn seems to solve this issue nicely.  It lets you finish off the opponent, as well as deal with their planeswalkers and sometimes prevent a Jitte equip at instant speed.

One card I have been on the fence about for some time is Price of Progress.
This once pointed card is brutally devastating is the midrange and control matchups, often killing the opponent form a seemingly safe 10+ life, but in race situations it quickly becomes uncastable and is obviously dead against decks that only run basics.
It also doesn't have the luxury of getting pointed at creatures which means that when it's dead, it's really dead.
I ran it in the main in league 2 but quickly moved it into the side board due to the high number of agro decks in that league.
On the other hand, in league 3 I started it in the side but moved it into the main in the last few rounds due to the lack of agro in the meta.

Is this a deck I'd recommend for someone wanting to get into the Highlander format?
Well, realistically you should probably start off with a more traditional Zoo list if you're looking at playing Zoo, but if you want something a bit less consistent while being oh so spicy, maybe this is the deck for you.

I look forward to battling it out in the top 8.
Until next time, may you Acall into Ghor-Clan + Boros Charm mid combat.  That was a sweet one :).

Khans Baby!

Khans Baby!

Khans has been a highly anticipated set due to its fetching new flavour as well as the, allegedly, popular returning morph mechanic and the landing of some cool new mechanics to set the clans apart.
Oh, I hear it also has fetch lands in it.

(Personally I rather dislike the morph mechanic but more on this later.)

I got my first taste of Khans at the pre-release where I participated in 4 events, going 4-0 in my first one and 2-2 in the rest.
Pre-releases are always fun but in general sealed is my least favourite format due to the extreme variance and the lack of deck building/card selection nuances that you get in draft.
Still, it did let me get a feel for the new mechanics and confirm that I could not beat a triple Siege Rhino pool... (yay sealed variance!!)

Across my 4 flights I went all the clans except Sultai and consistently found that the Abzan outlast mechanic was far and away the strongest.
I went undefeated with my Abzan deck even though I had zero bomb rares and even in my Mardu and Jeskai decks, the white outlast creatures were consistently the best parts of my decks.
Flying also seemed to be at a high premium as the boards ended up hugely stalled on the ground very often.
(My pre-release fetch count was 3.)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to get in an early Khans draft with some mates, which I managed to win, and it gave a rather pleasant initial glance at the format.

I first picked a Chief of the Scale as black/white warriors was an archetype I had pegged for being achievable and good.
I pretty quickly settled into Junk colours as I picked up an Abzan Charm and some decent green cards.
The core white warrior cards never came but I did end up with a few in black and white though with no further chiefs, it wasn't really the focus of my deck anyway.
I ended up the draft, as I often do, with no bomb rares (I think I actually played zero rares in my deck) but with a pretty solid core of defensive outlast creatures, triple Abzan Charm, an Armament Corps and a few fliers which I hoped would get me through in the air.



Unfortunately I only ended up with 2 on colour dual lands which made my mana a bit loose but with 7 sources of each colour, it did the job passingly.

I also got to try out Kin-Tree Invocation with 2 Disowned Ancestors in my deck and while I never got to turn 2 make a 4/4, making a 4/4, or often bigger, for 2 mana seemed fine at any stage of the game.



In the end, the Armament Corps and the 3 Abzan Charms were about as excellent as they look and I was able to defeat 3 decent decks to 3-0.

I also cracked a Bloodstained Mire in pack 3, fetch count moves to 4.


Some things that my first draft taught me:
- Agro is definitely achievable, though I'm not sure if it's good yet.
I played against Max in the finals and he had a very aggressive Mardu deck with Pony Back Brigades and Trumpet Blasts in it, as well as 3 Skullhunters which kept my hand empty very well.
I got overrun super fast game 1, got there in game 2 with some sided in Sidisi's Pets (being able to flip these for 2 mana is super brutal against a deck full of 2/1s) and Max never drew a black mana source in game 3.
The deck looked sweet but I feel it's very hard for agro to get through in Khans without going super wide.

- I still don't like morph.
Look, I get why WotC put the no blow outs below 5 mana rule but it leads to super linear game play to me.  At below 5 mana you can't bluff with the morphs at all and if you do have 5 mana, no one is going to go anywhere remotely close to your morphs unless they have a kill/bounce spell in hand in which case you get super blown out.
I've been finding that I'd much rather play a decent 3 drop on turn 3 (there are quite a few) than play a generic morph.  The exception being the morphs with spells attached, like Icefeather Raven, which are excellent and well worth the durdly process that is the morph mechanic.
Don't get me wrong, there are some very strong morph cards and you should play them, I just am not a fan of the mechanic as a whole.



- Fixing is important, take it.
The should be pretty obvious but it's worth stating again.
I feel I'd like 4-5 pieces of fixing in an ideal world but you're not always going to get it.
That said, there are very few double cost requirement cards in the format so you can get away with a 7 of each source mana base reasonably ok at 2-3 piece of fixing.

- Outlast is strong.
I didn't have any of the premium, namely lifelink and flying, outlast creatures in my deck but even the lowly Disowned Ancestor always felt super strong.
Played on turn 1, the guy was almost always a 3/7 or 4/8 which is nothing to sneeze at.
Early impressions lead me to believe this will be one of my most drafted cards.


Anyway, all things point to Khans being a super sweet draft format and I look forward to getting more of it in this weekend.
Hopefully I'll get passed 3 Abzan Charms again! (In case you were wondering, card's pretty much insane.)