Going to time.

Hi, My name is Joshua Quant. The aim of this page is to have a place for me to spill my thoughts relating to Magic: The Gathering and the cards, decks, and formats therein.

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Lightning Bolt - Is it still good (in mordern)?

At first, this seems like a stupid question. Everyone will jump to defend our beloved little red common to the death because over time, people have always said it's good. Why? I recently built UWR control for modern (switching from esper gifts), and instantly jammed in four copies of lightning bolt, without even thinking about it. Well, this is it. I'm thinking about it. This stream of thought will help me justify the four copies of lightning bolt. If I can't justify it, then I will have to re-think things. I will also cover thoughts relating to non-control decks too. Point 1: It's one mana. One mana spells keep our curve lower and give us chance to operate more efficiently. While playing a control deck like UWR, we won't be doing much curving out as such. However, in a deck like Jund, this can help fill the curve, whether it's play a Goyf and a bolt on turn 3, or cast liliana and bolt on turn 4. Mono red/RW aggressive strategies are always popular, mainly because of their low barrier to entry (in cost and availability) and Affinity/Zoo/infect decks always show up in some numbers. There are lots of aggressive decks running plenty of threats that need to be dealt with early. 

Point 2: It deals 3 damage. In point one, I said that there were lots of aggressive decks running lots of one and two mana threats. 3 damage is enough to kill all threats in decks that I talked about. None of the cards have more than 3 toughness. Goblin guide, Monastary swiftspear, Vault skirge, Ornithopter, Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, Glistner elf & Blighted agent. However, on top of this, there are still targets in many other decks. Noble Heirarch, Dark Confidant, Pestermite, Snapcaster mage, Goblin electromancer  and many many others. The only decks I can think of where there's not a relevant 1-for-1 target are Scapeshift, ad-nauseum and Tron.

Point 3: It can target players Bolt-snapcaster-bolt is a very real threat. In my current form of UWR, I have something like 34-38 points of burn. Players might think taking damage from their lands is relatively safe when playing against control, which could lead to some nasty blow-outs. A surprise end step Helix-bolt-snapcaster-bolt followed by making celestal colonnade a creature and hitting them with it and the snapcaster is 15 damage out of nowhere. 

Point 4: It's instant As mentioned before, it can be cast on end step or any other time I want for that matter. This means I can hold up mana for counterspells, use it in the combat phase, or react to my opponent when they cast their spells. It enables me to be more flexible.

I think I've covered quite a lot here, and I think I've justified it in my mind. If there's anything you can think of in favour or opposed to my thoughts, then please leave me a message.

Thanks for reading and be sure to come back soon.

- Joshua Quant "And that's time on the round..."

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Trying my hand at altering.

Ideally i want to try altering a card that is a relatively cheap eternal format staple. Any suggestions on cards?

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January's Goals Revisited

When I started this blog, I set out some goals. You can see the original post here. 

I'm happy to say that i smashed these goals right in the face with my deckbox and stood victorious with my fist held aloft in victory... ahem. Nevermind. The goals for February are as follows:

February Goals: - 16 Followers (since followers will have slowed down now) - 5 New Text Posts

It would be awesome if you could help promote the blog and maybe even send me some messages about your recent MTG endeavours; whether it's a new deck for a new format (such as Tiny Leaders) or what new alter(s) you're working on.

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U/B Control - Fate Reforged Standard

There's a reason this blog is called going to time.

I've been far too distracted in standard by a Narset brew that myself and my pal Geoff Fletcher have been testing with. Despite the fact it's a very control-orientated build, it doesn't quite feel like true control to me. I started building U/B control for KTK standard but it didn't quite feel right, so quickly tossed it aside. Since the fate reforged spoiler for Crux of fate (standards new Damnation-esque card) however, I've had primal urges towards going back to play it. Reforging it's fate, if you will.

Let's get straight to my list:

The first thing you may notice, is that unlike some builds at the moment; I've chosen to play fewer fetch lands and only 3 copies of Dig through time. To mitigate this, I'm playing 2 copies of divination. I've accomplished this by dropping a land (builds are playing 27 with 6 fetches at the moment) and one copy of dig through time. My reasoning behind this is that I sometimes feel like my hand will be gummed up by uncastable digs. Both net me a card, but the selection is obviously a loss. I'm playing an additional draw spell, so hopefully, that makes up for some of the loss and draws me closer to Digs anyway. I'm still playing 3 copies of Dig, so I've not lost too much.

I'm currently trying all 3 popular win conditions right now and this will change depending on the meta and testing. Is the Silumgar/Crux of fate combo relevent often enough? Is ugin too mana intensive? Is Pearl Lake Ancient not resilient enough? I guess i'll find out in testing and update you at a later point.

- Joshua Quant

"And that's time on the round..."

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Fate Reforged Prerelease Weekend: Quant's Top Cards

Prerelease weekend is here. Some folks will be doing midnight prereleases in mere hours, while some will have to wait until Saturday and/or Sunday. For what it's worth, I have a few opinions on the cards you're going to be opening in your pools this weekend. I will be talking about some limited format allstars but I will be talking mostly about commons and uncommans as these will make up at least 75-80% of your nonland cards this weekend. 

2 damage removal

I first wanted to talk about the removal spells that deal 2 damage. In your prerelease packs, you will have 4 boosters of fate reforged plus whatever fate reforged cards are in your seeded booster. So it is safe to assume that most cards being played will be from the new set. As it turns out, there are a lot of creatures that have 2 or less toughness. First of all, manifest makes 2/2 morphs. Then, out of the 87 creatures in the set, there are 41 which have 2 or less toughness. Cunning strike may be a little expensive, but it's worth considering the above facts before tossing it to the side.

Other spot removal

Bathe in Dragonfire, Sandblast and Valorous stance are my top 3 removal spells other than the 2 spoint removal spells mentioned earlier. In fate reforged, it seems black does not have very many good removal options. Bathe in Dragonfire is sorcery, but it's relatively cheap and 4 points of damage is a substantial amount. This will kill the uncommon cycle of dragons and most other things for that matter. Only 17 creatures in the set dodge it and 9 of them are rare or mythic. Some of that 17 are also pretty bad, such as Sibsig Host or Ugin's Construct. Sandblast hits almost every creature in the set and Valorous Stance hits all the creatures which might not get hit by your other removal while having the added bonus of a combat trick.

As a side note, with all of the low toughness, I'm not sure how good grim contest is. But a fight at instant speed... that could allow for some strange plays and I have no doubt that i'll be drafting a "Butt Fight" deck in the very near future.

A close 4th is Whisk Away. While still technically trading 1-for-1, whisk away doesnt remove the threat permanently. However, it is fantastic for playing tempo with the creatures in Jeskai.

I'm still pretty sure Reality Shift is fantastic removal. However, the pessimist in me is anxious about manifesting a problematic creature that will beat me to death. Even if that does happen, it will be a great tempo play. Are you feeling lucky?

While not a fan of the other uncommon dragons, I feel that Noxious dragon is fantastic. It's evasive with a decent body and it's going to be an easy 2-for-1. For 6 mana, i feel that's a decent deal. I wish I could say the same for he others. It's possible that the green one (destructor dragon) is okay too.

Top common creatures

Above are my top 8 commons. Lotus Path Djinn and Jeskai sage feel pretty good to me for commons. The Djinn is evasive and has the ability to trade well in the jeskai tempo deck. I also like that the Sage has the ability to trade and then cantrip in the right situation. The sage feels like he'll be part of 3-for-2's quite often if played well. Gore swine can trade well and enables ferocious; which brings us to Whisperer of the wilds and Frontier Mastodon. I feel like these are THE best commons in the set if enabled. Having 6 mana on turn 4 seems solid to me, and a 4/3 for 3 mana also hits the mark. The +1/+1 counter on the mastodon is not irrelevant either since there are a lot of abzan cards that interact with counters (A FLYING MASTODON! WHEEE!).

A vigilant 2/2 wouldnt be in my top 8 commons without another ability. Those who have already played with/against Jeskai in limited know that they can cause some pretty brutal combats if not prepared against. Then in black are my 2nd and 3rd best black common creatures (the 1st we'll come to later). Typhoid rats has the ability of holding off an army on his own. We know this from playing with it in other limited formats. Hooded assassin is only ever going to be played for the 2nd ability, but it's a good one.

Quant's card to watch

I think Sultai Emissary may have slipped past some peoples' radar. I honestly feel like this could be the best common of the set. Firstly, you get a 1/1 followed by a 2/2. However, even if the card you manifest isn't a creature, you still cause your opponent to play differently for the near future. For all they know, it could be a Noxious Dragon (for super happy value town) or even Drokroma, The Eternal.  Then when it actually is a pretty sweet creature, you feel amazing when flipping it up.

That's it for now. There are plenty of good uncommons I could talk about but I fear making this post too long. I may create another post in the future for the uncommons. Let me know your thoughts on some of the cards I have mentioned or important ones I may have missed through the 'Require a Revolation?' link.

GOOD LUCK IN YOUR LOCAL PRERELEASE!

- Joshua Quant

"And that's time on the round..."

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Block Party 11th Jan 2015 - Part 2: The results

If you have not read part 1, please follow this link. In part one, I discussed the players and their chosen decks. In part 2, I will be posting the results and a summary of the matches I played. So without further ado, lets get started.

Round 1

I got the Bye. It was unexciting, however, I got the chance to snoop at the competition and see what they were playing. Here's what I saw:

Dan Swain's Zendikar Vampres Vs Paul Johnson's KTK Warriors Winner: Dan

James Noott's Ice Age UB Control Vs Shane Tarbuck's KTK Mono Red Winner: Shane

Jim Corwood's Zendikar UWR Control Vs James ("Laughing man") Jordan's Scars Splicers Winner: Jim

John Till's Lorwyn Faeries Vs Geoff Fletcher's UB Faeries Winner: John ("Yank")

James Cogbill's Zendikar UW Control Vs Harry Garbett's 5c Zendikar Control Winner: James ("Englishman")

Mono Red was too fast and efficient for Noott's defensive strategy. Winning the coin flip/die roll usually helps. Meanwhile, the UB Faeries match up seemed to be decided by whoever could cast T1 Thoughtseize followed by T2 Bitterblossom. Early days, but I'd be playing one of the winners in round 2.

Round 2

I was drawn against the Mono Black Zendikar Vampires. In game one, there was not much that the vampires could do against my supreme verdicts and detention sphere for the pesky bloodghast. I took game one quite decisively. Game 2 was a different story. I sideboarded in the early removal and took out some countermagic. The vampires however, had access to Mire's Toll and Mind sludge which was extremely scary. The game lasted a long time. Jace, Architect of thought kept ticking up, reducing a lot of damage over several turns while vampire nighthawk kept gaining him life (up to around the 35 mark). However, while his hand was empty for most of the late game, mine was gradually building up and trading one-for-one until he cast sadistic sacrament. It would have worked if i did not have an Aethering already in hand. I eventually could safely stick aetherling and get it to work. I won game 2 on Turn 5 of turns.

As for the rest of the players:

Jim Vs Shane Winner: Shane James "Englishman" Vs "Yank" Winner: James

Geoff Vs Noott Winner: Geoff

James "Laughing Man" Vs Harry Winner: Harry

KTK Warriors got the Bye.

Round 3

Round 3 I got paired against Paul's KTK Warriors. Unfortunately, the warrior synergy was no match for Supreme verdict and buckets of removal.  In game 2 I was forced to overload Cyclonic Rift to counter an alpha strike for the win.

Shane Vs James "Englishman" Winner: James

"Yank" Vs Noott Winner: "Yank"

Geoff Vs Jim Winner: Jim

Harry Vs Dan Winner: Harry

James "Laughing Man" got the Bye. Shanes reign of terror was over. KTK Mono red could not overcome the power of Jace's ultimate ability, Celestial Colonnade, Gideon Jura and Sphinx of Lost Truths.

I had made it to the final with James "Englishman" Cogbill. However, my tie-breakers were awful. I knew it was either win outright, or be the victim to horrid breakers andpossibly go home with nothing.

Round 4

Game 1 was horrible. I had mulliganed down to 6. Thanks to Everflowing Chalice, James was able to cast a turn 3 Jace the mind Sculptor while on the play. With only Dispel and an uncastable counterflux in hand, it resolved. Detention sphere was nowhere to be seen and the result was a very fast game 1. Scarred, I quickly moved to my sideboard trying not to get  too frustrated. I bring in 2x pithing needles and 2x Dispel. Due to supreme verdict and mizzium mortars being dead, I bought in Wear//tear also. The game didnt go much better. I mulliganed to 5, but with no blue source. He played 3 colonnades, one after the other. I managed to cast both needles, one on colonnade, one on Jace. Jace came down followed by into the roil, bouncing pithing needle, which allowed him to start fatesealing me. There was no blue source to be found. He later told me he put 3 Blue sources to the bottom.

"Yank" Vs Jim Winner: "Yank"

Harry Vs Shane Winner: Harry

Geoff Vs Paul Winner: Geoff

Dan Vs James "Laughing Man" Winner: James

Noott got the Bye.

FINAL STANDINGS

1st - James "Englishman" Cogbill 2nd - Harry Garbett 3rd - John "Yank" Till 4th - Joshua Quant (Me) 5th - Shane Tarbuck 6th - Jim Corwood 7th - James Jordan 8th - Geoff Fletcher 9th - James Noott 10th - Dan Swain 11th - Paul Johnson

Prerelease weekend is upon us. Next time we do a block party event, Shane and Paul will have more tools at their disposal. Revenge awaits.

Thanks to everyone who took part, and thanks to everyone who's read these two articles. Hopefully I can do more of this sort of thing for you. Again, let me know in the 'Require a Revelation' link if you liked this and want to see more.

- Joshua Quant

"And that's time on the round..."

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MTG Related Goals

The subject of MTG related new years resolutions/goals was bought up in our local gaming group. I thought I'd post them here so I could re-view them at the end of the year.

1. Make progress towards purchasing a Legacy Miracles deck.

2. Play more Legacy so that I understand the meta better for when i start playing Miracles.

3. Make day 2 of a GP.

4. Qualify for a Regional PTQ.

5. Be more confident when evaluating cards and testing them with my testing group.

- Joshua Quant

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Block Party 11th Jan 2015 - Part 1: The Decks

As mentioned in the previous blog (which can be found here), there was a Block Party event in my LGS Black Border Games at the weekend. Before going on to the event itself, I thought I'd introduce you to the players and their chosen block and deck.

James Jordan James, AKA "The Laughing Man", is well known for enjoying shenanigans with Splicers (typically featuring Precursor Golem). So it was no surprise that he chose Scars of Mirrodin block and played a splicers deck, which of course also played one of each sword (feast and famine, war and peace, and body and mind).

James Noott Noott has been playing the game for a very long time and was particularly excited at the chance to play with a bunch of cards he'd not played in years. He chose Ice Age (with alliances and cold snap), which of course let him play some very powerful cards; Force of Will being one of them. He played UB Control.

Jim Corwood Jim changed his choice of deck after he heard most of the players turning up to the event were playing control (sneaky). On the day he borrowed my Jace, The Mind sculptor to top his 3 Jaces up to 4 in his UWR Zendikar control deck. He was kind enough to supply me with an image of his deck which can be seen here.

Dan Swain Dan played Zendikar; mono black vampires to be exact. This was the first time i'd seen him at Black Border Games. I learned he'd started playing around the same time as me and this deck was homage to when he first started. His aim was to turn up, play some cards he'd not played in a long time and have some fun.

James Cogbill James (I've been assured his nickname is "Englishman") was another new face at Black Border Games. I learned he was at GP Manchester and was in a feature match with Shahar Shenhar during round 8. He also played four copies of Jace, The mind sculptor in a similar list to Jim, however, he did not play red. His Deck was UW Zendikar control.

Paul Johnson Paul is a relatively new player, but that didn't stop him playing his Khans of Tarkir BW Warriors. Playing a single set against blocks! FEARLESS!

Harry Garbett Having known Harry for a while, I know he loves to have fun. This was going to be no exception. He Played 5-colour Lorwyn Block control. I didnt get to see much of the deck but I will definitely try to get some info from him for a later post.

John Till It took me a while to recognise this name since i've only ever known him as "Yank". Aside from draft, I've only ever seen him playing Mono Black in last standard. One particular event stands out where we were in the top 8 of a decent sized tournament hosted by Noots Hovel of Games (Owned by James Noott as mentioned above). We were playing in the semis I believe and our match lasted about an hour and a half (I was on UW control). Anyway, it surprised me when I saw him playing UB Faeries from Lorwyn block.

Geoff Fletcher Due to a busy schedule Geoff was unable to build the deck he wanted to play but accepted a kind offer from Jim Corwood to play his UB Faeries deck from Lorwyn block. A very similar list to Yank's from what I saw.

Shane Tarbuck Another new player, apparently with balls of steel, bought mono red Khans of Tarkir to the party. Monastary swiftspear is just THAT good... Who needs Goblin Guide when you can have Valley Dasher?!

Yours Truly We had 11 players in total. Below is the decklist I bought to the party.

I think on the day I switched one basic Island to a basic plains just to make sure I could cast supreme verdict on time. With all the control you can see above, I may have had a few dead cards in my main board but my 4 copies of counterflux would definitely be very useful.

My sideboard contained the following: 2x Pithing Needle 2x Wear//Tear 1x Mizzium Mortars 3x Rest in Peace (Now i think that may have been a bit heavy) 2x Dispel (I wish i'd changed this to 3 and taken out one copy of rest in peace) 2x Mugging 1x Annihilating Fire 1x Electrickery (this would be very good against Faeries and I wish I'd increased this number) 1x Vandalblast

Thanks for reading. Send me a message via the 'Require a revelation?' link telling me who you think ended up on top (I will be totally upset if you don't say me). I will post the results in Part 2 which will arrive some time this week.

- Joshua Quant "And that's time on the round..."

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Block Party Preparation

This weekend (11th Jan 2015) my LGS Black Border Games is running a Block Party event. For those of you who aren't aware of this format, each player builds a deck using only cards from a single block of their choice. Each deck follows block constructed rules and uses it's own banned list if applicable (essentially, and rightly so, Urza block and Mirrodin block have the heaviest bannings).

In case you didnt know, and can't tell by the subtle hints on my blog; I am known in my local gaming community as a control player (to the dismay of many). My favourite card being Sphinx's Revelation; the card that brought me success when I started taking competitive magic more seriously. So naturally, since I already miss the card a lot, I will be playing Return to Ravnica block. Fortunately, this block also gives us some great control tools. It also has some amazing sideboard options too, which we'll talk about later.

Sphinx's revelation is a wonderful card. It is an instant, meaning we can draw cards at the end of our opponents turn. It gains us life for preventing getting burned out late game. Digs us to our win condition and gives us inevitability. If we draw most of our deck, we will have all of our cards at our disposal to deal with any threat in front of us. Casting one usually chains into another which is exactly what we want.

The first of these great control tools aside from Sphinx's Revelation, is an uncounterable Wrath of God in Supreme Verdict. I believe that aggressive strategies will be good in this format. Goblins or affinity, for example, are fast, efficient and have great support cards in their blocks (Mirrodin block and Lorwyn-Shadowmoor or Kamigawa block respectively). This will mean that clearing the board on turn 4 will be very important and something to keep in mind when building the deck.

The next tool at our disposal, and those who played in the last standard format will be very familiar with it, is Azorius Charm. This is great to slow down aggressive decks in a pinch, with the option of lifegain later in the game. It also allows us to dig for Supreme verdict or lands, or just cycle it late game for something much more relevant.

The next tool is a fantastic piece of catch-all removal. Detention Sphere. Capable of removing any problematic non-land permanents, this card will be reserved for dealing with annoying artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers that are left behind when all their creatures are swept away with supreme verdict. This card is great for the main board since we don't know what we'll be facing.

Control wouldnt be complete without a Jace, right? Return to Ravnica gave us an awesome version in Jace, Architect of Thought. The +1 ability is fantastic against aggressive strategies. Often we will use the -2 twice to just draw more cards when we're not worried about aggression. There are going to be some games in which using Jaces ultimate is also fantastic.

While ravnica was in standard, I played Esper and UW. However, my big question for Block party, is what 3rd colour do I play? Black used to give me some solid removal and the card Far//Away which quickly became one of my favourite cards in the format. Having an edict ability with Far//Away would be handy, however, I believe that I will be facing other control decks. Masques block with Counterspell, Daze, Brainstorm, Gush and misdirection was mentioned by a member of the community who seemed extremely excited that he could play with his old cards again. I like the idea of using Bribery and War Tax in this deck too. Unfortunately, I don't own these cards or i'd play the deck in a heartbeat.

This makes me want to play uncounterable counterspells; i.e. Counterflux. I think i will use this as my primary permission spell since it's a good stand in for the 3CMC permission spell. I also like the idea of some number of Dispel and/or Syncopate in the main deck. Furthermore, I feel like the versatility of Izzet charm can be put to good use since it gives me multiple options for an unknown meta.

Drawing to a conclusion, we have some more room for a bit more removal. I think Mizzium mortars will do nicely since it's cheap, versatile and deals 4 damage which will cover a lot of bases. A singleton of Cyclonic rift should give a few opponents a nasty surprise too.

Our win condition, of course, is the Trusty Aetherling. Hard to kill. Evasive. Hits hard. Exactly what we want.

Finally we have the land base. Good old shock Lands should give us the fixing we need while still having the option to play them untapped when needed. With these alongside some guildgates, we have a nice manabase which should let us cast all of our spells.

Before coming to a close, RTR block has some fantastic sideboard options. Rest in Peace, Vandalblast, Wear//Tear, Electrickery and Rapid Hybridization just to name a few.

Thanks for joining me on my Block Party deck construction journey. I will post the final decklist and results next week after the event. Any thoughts and ideas for the deck, send them to me in a message via the "Require a revelation?" link at the bottom of my blog.

- Joshua Quant

"And that's time on the round..."

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Renowned Weaponsmith The primary ability seems pretty sweet. It's a very flavourful card. Heart-piercer Bow was pretty unimpressive and since this is an uncommon, I expect the same will be true for "Vial of Dragonfire". Those who liked Bogbrew Witch and her shenanigans with her Bubbling Cauldron and Festering Newts will also enjoy this if theres some synergy between the Vial of Dragonfire and Heart-piercer bow.

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Greetings, aims & short term goals.

Greetings! My name is Joshua Quant, and further to the description on the blog header, I have been playing Magic for a relatively short time (since zendikar /scars of mirrodin standard). However, in this time, I believe I have developed as a player and I also believe that to further my development, a place to manifest my thoughts relating to cards, decks, format metagames and other such things would greatly help.

I aim to maintain this blog regularly and to interact with other members of the magic community. I could choose to do this privately, but the chance to obtain thoughts and ideas from others in the community and maybe even help others by doing so in a social format is too good to pass up.

JANUARY GOALS: - 10 followers - 3 text posts (not including this one)