Thought into thirst

A lot of depths decks have been running this over thirst for knowledge.

Plunge into Darkness
1B
instant
Choose one - Sacrifice any number of creatures, then you gain 3 life for each sacrificed creature; or pay X life, then look at the top X cards of your library, put one of those cards into your hand, and exile the rest.

Entwine {B} (Choose both if you pay the entwine cost.)

Let me just say I side out at least one thirst every game, normally due to the fact I run into drawing 2 a lot. And 2 generally means Im holding one blank, by the time I would get the opportunity to play the second Im already dead. But does that mean I should play plunge? It costing 1 less allows you to do things like keep mana open for meddle much easier. Of course there is more to it than its mana, as you would need to pay at least 4 life at any given time to consider it taking up thirsts slot. Extended is a much faster format, and even fast combo decks like depths needs all of its resources to ensure it gets there. If playing plunge means setting yourself up for next turn bolt, tribal flames, 3-5 creature damage your more than likely dead vs zoo.

Waiting for Rise of the Edrazi.

The last 15 cards spoiled for worldwake were disappointing. Where are the 2 other planeswalkers we were apparently going to see? Where the hell is the card that R&D said "would make all your landfall cards make more sense", are you telling me that your hype card was explore, was it treasure hunt?

So glad I didn't preorder any of this. Buy a complete commons and uncommons set as there are some nice standard staples, but don't invest money into packs. Draft it and let your Zendikar fetch you anything you need.

Baneslayer wont go down.

I work in jewerly and since 2003 the market value of gold has more than tripled. And every couple months my boss would claim that this is it and it will finally stablize. Ive recently been saying the same with Baneslayer Angel, who is now slowly approaching 60 a piece. With worldwake slowly being spoiled I'm seeing the error of my ways and begin to cringe knowing that I wont be able to play anything competitively white for the next 2 years, assuming they reprint her.

I present exhibit A

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=100651&d=1264334829

Loam Lion
W
1/1

If you control a forest Loam Lion gets +1/+2

Its a white kird ape. Naya and GW in standard, zoo and GW in extended both have room for the kitty.

Exhibit B

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=100369&stc=1&d=1263877290

Hada Freeblade
W
0/1

Whenever Hada Freeblade or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Hada Freeblade.

White weenie decks are already running Kazandu blademaster, I use to joke about how great it would be to run more than 4 muscle slivers in a deck and now I get to =D.

So now Im tempted to jump on the first one I find in the low 40 dollar range. With ebay being flooded with world wake pre sales I don't see this happening yet, the best time to strike will be more or less the week of the pre release where most will be more focus'd on man lands, bad Ally cards, and Jace's that will be horded in hopes to trade for playable Jund rares.

20/20's get there.

Okay so I sleeved up GT's 1st place PTQ deck from the 17th and took it to an FNM.

* 4 Vampire Hexmage
* 4 Dark Confidant
* 4 Thoughtseize
* 4 Muddle the Mixture
* 4 Thirst for Knowledge
* 3 Beseech the Queen
* 3 Thopter Foundry
* 2 Sword of the Meek
* 1 Engineered Explosives
* 1 Into the Roil
* 1 Doom Blade



* 1 Slaughter Pact
* 4 Chrome Mox
* 4 Dark Depths
* 4 Sunken Ruins
* 4 River of Tears
* 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
* 3 Tolaria West
* 2 Swamp
* 2 Island
* 1 Academy Ruins



* Sideboard
* 3 Deathmark
* 3 Duress
* 3 Extirpate
* 1 Sword of the Meek
* 1 Thopter Foundry
* 1 Ghost Quarter
* 1 Hurkyls Recall
* 1 Tormods Crypt
* 1 Chalice of the Void

Round 1 Teachings

I went into this tournament with next to no goldfishing. First game he mulled down to 5. I went turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 thoughtseize, turn 3 depths. Sideboard I removed the explosives, 1 thirst, 1 doomblade, and 1 muddle for 3 duress's and the 1 chalice. Game 2, kinda dragged, I managed to hit all my discard, depths, some chrome moxes, and all 3 of my muddles. About turn 7 or so we both had 1 card in hand, I played beeseech, it resolved, and Im not sure why, but I went for a thoughtseize, this was more or less due to the fact that I was distracted by my buddies, he shows me his land, I take 2, next turn he ripped an Aven Mindsensor and it was bird beat down from there, I drew urborgs and moxes like no ones business. Game 3, dragged about the same, we both had all are permission/disruption and traded off through the math, at that point the rest of the tournament was waiting on us and time was eventually called.

0-0-1 bleh

Round 2 Martyr

My buddy Danny was running WUG martyr because hes a little greedy with bant charm. Game 1 I got the turn 2 kill, removing his path with thoughtseize. Sideboard removed 1 explosives, 1 thirst, 1 slaughter pact, 1 muddle, for 3 duress's and the chalice. Game 2 I thoughtseized him turn 1 to find path, journey to nowhere, and bant charm, yay. The game drags out and Emeria goes active, I eventually scoop. I side again, removing the chalice for the muddle back. I combo turn 2 w/o the thoughtseize, he had 3 martyr's and no removal. He gain 15, I swing for 20, and that continues for about 4 turns.

1-0-1

Round 3 KCI

Yes, Danny gave my buddy Leo an extended legal second sunrise deck, better know as sunny side up or eggs. It plays a bunch of artifacts that blow up to make mana to play more artifacts, some of them draw, you cast sunrise, repeat, and eventually you banefire for alot. Unfortunately the deck is a turn or two to slow for the format, I combo'd both games against the guy who only signed up to reach the minimum required for the FNM.

2-0-1

Round 4 Hypergensis

I came here to not play against gimicky decks, Game 1 I go off before he does, Game 2 he goes off before I do, zzzzzzzz. Game 3 I first turn chalice for 0, by turn 3 I go off and he sac's simian spirit guide and casts wipe away on my token. We both laugh hysterically because at this point I over extended my hand and he has to more or less hard cast a sundering titan. I sit hosed for blue and was forced to beseech for a sunken ruins to play thopter foundry along with my swords. He hard casts his shapeshifter (the name fails me, update that later). And then later his progentious, counters kept the monsters at bay and went into the red zone.

3-0-1

Due to the small numbers and the tie breaker I take 3rd. Its enough for me to say "taking it to oakland". But we'll see. One thing that I'd probably consider is to have explosives as board, I find myself siding it out every game, ya its great against zoo, but for something like elves I'd have to already have it in hand as they will more than likely go off before me. That and whether or not I should force in some cliques. I need to find some zoo decks to test against so the other half of my sideboard feels like it is useful.

Top 8 doesnt make it a real deck.

Elves are on the rise. As the sea of decks begin flooding MTGO and most forums, its only a matter of time until it snags a PTQ of a GPT, and when it does expect primal command and summoner's pact to match the price's of their blue cousins. Regal force seems to already be moving out of the dollar bin. When this does in fact happen the logical choice will be faeries. The question is how long should I wait for the tides to change, or will firespout keep this from happening.

Scapeshift has shifted the meta.

GP Oakland is less than a month away and I'm still shaky on what I want to play. With scapeshift becoming much larger in the meta my plan to run Sullivan Special seems nearly pointless. Without a first turn ascension scapeshift more or less outraces me by a turn. And even with bloodchief going active at the end of my second turn on the play scapeshift still has cryptic command and into the roil main by that point its nearly impossible to recover.

After reviewing a few articles the census says that dark depths is by far the worst match up for scapeshift. And low and behold the past couple of extended dailies on MTGO have dark depths 4-0, and Gerry Thompson wins the online PTQ on Sunday.

There are 2 different versions, the thopter foundry/sword of the meek hybrid that GT piloted, and the traditional version that runs vendillion cliques, both seem viable. My only concern is that the meta will shift yet again prior to Oakland, with some nasty incarnation tuned to beat dark depths. What that is exactly is yet to be seen. I will be proxying me up some 20 dollar man lands and begin testing hoping to find "paper" or to start examining the mirror.