Islandhome #21

==ISLANDHOME #21==

July 23rd 2008

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Eventide Launch Party Details!
Eventide Limited Tips
Tournament Report: My dueling adventures this past weekend.
EDH League: Quick Updates, including a new player and a match result!
Magical Misunderstandings: Split Second

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: Eventide Sanctioned Booster Draft at Brothers Grim @ 7 PM
Saturday: Eventide Launch Party at FNC @ 1 PM
Sunday: Eventide Launch Party at Brothers Grim @ 2 PM

==EVENTIDE LAUNCH PARTY DETAILS==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Eventide gets released this weekend, and there's going to be release events at your favorite stores to celebrate! At either event you attend, you'll get a Shadowmoor tournament pack and two Eventide boosters, using those to build a minimum 40-card deck. Like any other limited event without decklists, you'll be able to change your deck between rounds, so don't worry if you don't get it right the first time. Everyone who signs up to play will receive a foil Figure of Destiny promo, one of the hottest cards in the set!

This Friday is also when Eventide becomes legal for both limited and constructed events, so Friday will be the first sanctioned Shadowmoor-Shadowmoor-Eventide draft at Brothers Grim!

FNC
Date: Saturday, July 26th @ 1 PM
Entry Fee: $26
Product: 1 Shadowmoor Tournament Pack, 2 Eventide Boosters

Brothers Grim
Date: Sunday, July 27th @ 2 PM
Entry Fee: $23
Product: 1 Shadowmoor Tournament Pack, 2 Eventide Boosters
Brothers Grim will also be holding special sales on Sunday, and I've been told they'll be "interesting"!

Wizards of the Coast (and Islandhome) doesn't guarantee any assortment of cards in a pack, but if you do open anything unusual, please let me know as soon as you realize. Unusual things include two or more of a Shadowmoor card of any rarity (unless one's foil), more than two Eventide cards of any rarity, and two or more Eventide rares.

We may do deck swaps at both events - that's where you open the packs you get, check off how many of each card you've got, then put the cards back in the box and hand them to me, where I'll pass them back out at random. This helps prevent both cheating and accusations of cheating, so it helps everyone.

==EVENTIDE LIMITED TIPS==
Author: Brian Paskoff

The addition of Eventide to Shadowmoor block limited is a huge bonus. No longer do you have to worry about getting mana screwed when you're not playing one of the five allied color pairs, because a red/white deck for example gets enough spells from Eventide to smooth out the manabase. When you crack open your sealed product this weekend, here's some tips to build a winning deck.

Removal is still high on the list. Thankfully it's not as rare as it was in Shadowmoor-only limited, especially if you're playing red. Puncture Blast gets rid of significantly more creatures than Puncture Bolt, Fire at Will can turn the tide of the combat step, Unmake is one of the strongest removal spells ever printed for limited, and so on. Don't underestimate the power of Flame Jab; even its measly one damage can add up, especially when facing a field of X/1s or getting mana flooded.

Speaking of retrace spells, they give you another reason to play 18 land in SHM/EVE limited, because every extra land you draw and don't need turns into a copy of any retrace spell in your graveyard. The "tried and true" spell to land ratio of limited decks is 23 spells, 17 land, but in a block like this one with traditionally slower decks and retrace spells, it might be a good idea to play 23 spells and 18 land, playing a 41-card deck. Your mileage may vary.

Like with any limited format, you should try sticking to two colors, maybe with a third-color splash if you have the mana fixers to support it. Although mono-color decks are easy to build in a draft format, with sealed deck you're not in control of what cards you get, so your bombs may be spread out between at least two colors. Pay close attention to the mana costs of your spells; you might find that your deck can run a lot smoother if you play only one type of basic land, even if you need to cut a card or two.

Having two packs of Eventide means it's possible to abuse Mimics to great effect. If you manage to get even one in your colors, you shouldn't think twice about including as many cards to "activate" it as possible, including any hybrid Auras to match its colors. Other creatures that should be in your deck without question are the Hatchlings. Even if you're only playing one of a Hatchling's two colors, it shouldn't take much to turn your 2/2 into a 6/6. And don't forget the fun combos with Hatchings and Fate Transfer, or Quillspike, or any useful instant speed spell that shares a color with your Hatchling in order to double as a combat trick!

Quillspike is deadly in limited. Sure it dies itself to even one -1/-1 counter (that is, if it's not already pumped up and you don't have the mana to siphon off its own -1/-1 counters), but it combos with Hatchlings, persisting creatures, and any of Shadowmoor's "put a -1/-1 counter on me to untap me" creatures. Oh, and it can grow unreasonably large with Devoted Druid. Tap the Druid to add green to your mana pool, put a -1/-1 counter on the Druid to untap it, then use that green mana and remove the -1/-1 counter to feed your Quillspike. Then repeat the process an infi... arbitrarily large number of times. If you're lucky enough, you can then fling it at your opponent with Rite of Consumption for lots and lots of damage.

Lastly, you can always practice your sealed deck skills on Magic Workstation; the database for Eventide is available, so you can generate sealed pools and play against your friends online. It's a great way to learn which cards are useful and how to construct a deck.

Whatever you crack this weekend, good luck!

==TOURNAMENT REPORT: FNC 7/19/08==
Author: Brian Paskoff

It's been inexplicably bothering me for a few months now that my constructed rating was stuck at 1697. Judging about fifteen times the number of events I've played in meant my rating was slowly gathering dust, and while a 1700 rating doesn't get you a bye at a major event or anything, it's still somewhat of a milestone... especially for a judge. FNC's metagame is a little different than most places; the two most popular decks in the format, Faeries and Reveillark, don't usually have much of a showing there. Aggro decks are the big thing, and there are quite a few mono-red burn decks. So in a rare moment of clarity, Madonia had a good idea: I should play his mono-white Life deck (see Islandhome #19). Since the last Standard deck I played with any sort of regularity was my homebrew WG Ramp deck, which also hoped to stall out the aggro decks with life gain, playing mono-white seemed like a great idea.

Round 1: vs. Rob Grippa, playing Faeries
Faeries is definitely the worst matchup for this deck, with Reveillark a close second, so of course I played the only Faerie deck in the room in the first round. Actually, it has problems with anything that plays Cryptic Command and Rune Snag. In both games Rob suspended obscene amounts of Ancestral Visions, and countered everything relevant I played; the only spell I resolved the first game was a turn two Martyr of Sands. I planned to use the 21 life I gained off of it and the five damage it did in the first few turns where he did nothing to race the two Bitterblossoms he eventually played, but he only got down to 11 before the faerie swarm got too much for me. Game 2 was only a little different in that he Mistbind Clique'd me every turn.
Loss: -3 points.

Round 2: vs. Frank Barbato, playing RG Aggro
For some reason Frank wasn't playing his usual control deck this week. I was at lower-than-comfortable life for a few turns in the first game, not drawing any of my life-gaining spells except for a Martyr of Sands I popped early on. I knew Frank was holding a Molten Disaster in his hand, and knew I had to stay above his mana to stay alive. Why he didn't split-second-ize it and deal me a boatload of damage, kill my problematic Crovax, and clear the way for his graveyard full of Call of the Herds (he seemed to draw four of them every game) and any burn spells he might topdeck to finish me off, I'll never know. But I finally drew a Martyr and got back into the game. Game 2 he boarded in Everlasting Torments. Even though I knew they were coming in, I didn't board my Wispmares, wanting to see how I could fare against the card. Surprisingly, it worked great for me. He dropped it early, but it cost him a turn to do so. It made my Condemns almost better than Swords to Plowshares, and changed my Knight of Meadowgrains from "first strike, lifelink" to "first strike, wither". I got rid of it with an Oblivion Ring when I was ready, and was able to get back into the game.
Gain: +5 points.

Round 3: vs. Travis Tricoche, playing Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block Quick n' Toast
Travis was playing a block deck that he managed to borrow off of someone. I was a little worried because the deck played Cryptic Command and Broken Ambitions, but only Cryptic Command could reliably counter a Martyr of Sands, and the turns I bought with life gain helped me stave off the aggro rush. Only Oona would have really been a problem, but he never got her out in either game. Even Reveillark and Makeshift Mannequin bringing back Fulminator Mages over and over to shoot my lands out from under me wasn't enough to stop me from regaining tempo by gaining life and getting back creatures with Reveillark.
Gain: +6 points.

Round 4: vs. Grego McConnel, playing homebrew Elves
Grego's Elf deck is fast, but it had two weaknesses - well, one was a part of the other really. It seemed to run only a few lands due to the abundance of mana-producing creatures like Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise, which made it even MORE vulnerable than any other aggro deck to Wrath of God. Game 1 he played a Summoner's Pact for a Chameleon Colossus, and next turn I Oblivion Ringed his Birds of Paradise, stranding him on three mana and making it impossible for him to pay for his pact.
Gain: +6 points.

Round 5: I drew with Jon Lorig, who was playing a homebrew deck based around Vigor. I knew that with almost all the 9-pointers drawing, I had a chance to get knocked out of top 8, but I didn't really care about making it.
Loss: -2 points.

So my constructed rating is now a respectable 1709. Do I plan to go for the big 1800? Maybe some day, if there's a deck that inspires me enough, but maybe my next goal will be to get my limited rating from 1670 to 1700!

==EDH LEAGUE: QUICK UPDATES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

New Entry: Nester "Nester" Ramirez, playing Reaper King

Michael Bauer beats Nick Seidler 2-0!

My match with Bauer is on hold for now, but I'm up a game 1-0. Hooray!

==MAGICAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS: SPLIT SECOND==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Probably the most headache-inducing mechanic since banding, split second has caused me to want to bang my head against the nearest solid wall more than any other rule in Magic. I'd even wager to say that more people have misunderstood the ability than any other ability in Magic - I swear I remember banding being relatively well understood, but that was because everyone who played when banding existed "grew up" with it. But when Time Spiral came out and split second was unleashed on the Magic playing world, it caused all sorts of confusion.

Let me tell a story of a playtesting game between two players, let's call them Aaron and Neil, just because I love the Active player/Non-active player names from the judge tests and I don't want to use any real names. Aaron was playing Ravnica-Time Spiral era Dragonstorm. What Neil was playing doesn't matter, but it had the then-freshly-released Extirpate in it. Aaron had four mana up and played Seething Song. Seething Song resolved, adding RRRRR to his mana pool. Knowing that Neil had an Extirpate in his hand, Aaron whispered to me, "Can I play another Seething Song, then in response play another Seething Song, without passing priority to let him play Extirpate?" I said yes - Aaron was the active player, and once he played the second Seething Song this turn, he had priority to play a third before Neil got priority to play Extirpate.

Aaron took three mana from his pool, tapped his remaining Mountain for R, and said "Seething Song, in response, Seething Song," showing the next two in his hand.
"Wait!" said Neil, "In response to the second Seething Song, I'll Extirpate the first one you played this turn."

Neil hoped to get the third Seething Song out of his hand before he could play it, but I explained how priority works and how Aaron could keep priority and keep playing spells "in response" before he passed to Neil.

"That's not true, then how do counterspells work?" Neil asked. I tried explaining how the stack doesn't all resolve at once, and once one player added all his spells/abilities to the stack and passed priority, the next player could target any of those spells/abilities with counterspells/Stifles.

It was just then that Neil's friend came in and Neil explained his side of the story to him. Neil's friend said I was right, but, and this is the worst part: "It doesn't matter if you have priority though, because Extirpate has Split Second!"

So you see how the name "Split Second" caused so much confusion. Players assumed split second meant just that - that it was somehow "faster" than any other spell, and you could play it whenever you wanted. I used to have players arguing with me that they could play split second spells as instants while Teferi was in play because they were too fast for Teferi to stop, or that a Counterbalance wouldn't be able to counter a Sudden Shock.

The worst part about all this misunderstanding? Split second's reminded text states on the card everything that it does: As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't play spells or activated abilities that aren't mana abilities. Not many abilities' reminder text explicitly spell out exactly what they do in their reminder text; reminder text generally gives a vague idea of what the abilitiy does. But for split second, it does - while the spell is on the stack, neither player can play spells or activated non-mana abilities. Triggered abilities and special actions such as unmorphing a creature work fine while a spell with split second is on the stack.

==RULES CORNER==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Q. With Merrow Bonegnawer, who chooses the card to be removed from the game?
A. Merrow Bonegnawer's ability has only one target: a player. When the ability resolves, that player chooses a card in his or her graveyard and removes it from the game. Hopefully, your opponent won't have too many cards in their graveyard, so activating it a few times will get rid of the card you want.

Q. There's a Temporal Isolation on my Stigma Lasher, but I attack with it anyway. With damage on the stack, I sacrifice my Stigma Lasher to my suspended Greater Gargadon. Can my opponent gain life later?
A. Good trick getting that pesky Temporal Isolation off your Stigma Lasher. Since it's not in play anymore, it can't prevent any damage, and combat damage from Stigma Lasher will resolve as normal. However, while "last known information" allows the game to know just about anything it needs to about the former elemental, if for example you had an ability that triggered whenever a red source dealt damage, Stigma Lasher isn't in play anymore either. So, it's triggered ability can't trigger.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==GUEST ARTICLES==

If you've noticed, in the past few weeks I've been having a few more guest articles in Islandhome. With tournaments all weekend and work all week, sometimes it's hard to find time to sit down and write an entire newsletter, which is why I love it when I get article submissions! Not only does it give more introspective on the Long Island Magic community from those who are a part of it, it saves me work. ;) It's especially useful to get articles from players who are a part of the metagame, as judges are notoriously bad players.

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, and Eventide.

July 26th (Saturday): Eventide Launch Party at FNC
See above for details!

July 27th (Sunday): Eventide Launch Party at Brothers Grim
See above for details!

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY