Let’s dive into Ravnica politics. Last time we were on Ravnica, Jace became the living Guildpact, basically a magical mediator that keeps the guilds from killing each other. We were having a relatively stable peace with guilds testing the current situation with negotiation and force, but on the whole, they were getting along.

During this time of relative peace, Izzet League guild leader and ancient dragon Niv Mizzet made the head of the Boros Legion, Tajic, look like an inept human fool over a bio-terrorism crisis with the Simic Combine.

I don’t understand Modern. Or perhaps I understand it all too well.

As any regular or semi-regular readers can attest, I’ve been advocating a Cruel Ultimatum control deck in Modern for some time now. As anyone with access to the Internet can attest, the deck hasn’t even remotely caught on.

Really, only Paul Cheon’s stream has been a haven for people wanting to play Cruel Ultimatum in Modern, but it just doesn’t make sense to me why that’s the case. Even at Pro Tour Born of the Gods, we only found two players playing any sort of Grixis deck. One was wildly misbuilt, and the other only slightly.

But two is incredibly low. More people played with the card The Rack than with Cruel Ultimatum. Three times as many people played Faeries—a deck almost universally panned as not good enough (though Alex Sittner is doing his best to disprove that notion, with yet another high finish at Grand Prix Richmond)—as played Cruel Ultimatum.

Even Patrick Chapin, King of the Cruel, Grand Arbiter of Grixis, Baron of Combining Blood Crypt with Steam Vents (that one was a stretch) didn’t seem to really consider it for the Pro Tour.

And I just can’t explain it.

There are 1362 cards legal in Standard right now.

It's safe to say that only around 150 of them will ever see any play at all. Just like in sports, the cream rises to the top, and not everyone can make the team.

Some aren't fast enough.

Some aren't strong enough.

And some look like they aren't even trying.

However, we are at the point of the Standard season now where substitutions are starting to be made. For many of the cards that are just on the cusp, toiling away at practice hoping for their day in the sun, this is a very exciting time.

Around the middle of a Standard format, once the established decks have been ironed out and the metagame has been fairly established, people often begin to complain the format has gotten old or stale. They use this as an excuse to be lazy and blame the fact they can't win on the format. This is also the time when exciting innovations tend to happen. Players who aren't interested in excuses start reaching deeper into the talent pool to see what they can pull out.

Formats shift, players move in and out, and there is no shortage of bench players just dying to get in the game. They've been watching all season, cheering on their team, and want nothing more than to contribute.

Bench

Slowly and quietly, they are starting to get their chance.

A lot of people asked me for Modern help leading up to Pro Tour Born of the Gods in Valencia and Grand Prix Richmond. Last week I went into detail about one of my favorite decks in Modern, The Rock (B/G Midrange), but I ended the article mentioning the other decks that have been floating in my head. The wildest one was a deck I had only just decided to revisit: BluManji.

If you don't remember, BluManji is a G/U Vengevine deck first designed by Larry Swasey during the domination of Caw-Blade in 2011. Larry took this wild deck full of Fauna Shaman, Frost Titan, and even Consecrated Sphinx to two Standard Open Top 8s and nearly a third Top 8! Here is one of his lists:

[cardlist title=BluManji - Larry Swasey]

[Lands]

8 Forest

5 Island

2 Evolving Wilds

4 Misty Rainforest

1 Scalding Tarn

2 Terramorphic Expanse

3 Verdant Catacombs

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

3 Acidic Slime

4 Birds of Paradise

1 Consecrated Sphinx

4 Fauna Shaman

2 Frost Titan

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Nest Invader

1 Oracle of Mul Daya

4 Vengevine

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

2 Tumble Magnet

3 Obstinate Baloth

4 Flashfreeze

1 Into the Roil

3 Mana Leak

2 Nature's Claim

[/Sideboard]

Watching this list was pretty inspiring. It was such a brilliant challenge to Caw-Blade, and when you played the decks head-to-head, it just felt so overwhelming in favor of BluManji. As the format developed, I started playing the deck constantly, and up until the printing of Dismember, I had a list that regularly destroyed Caw-Blade and was basically excellent in every other matchup. Three of us played the deck one weekend in two different PTQs; all of us made Top 8, and Larry won his event with my version of his deck.

What is the spirit of Commander?

Wacky. Fun. Multiplayer. Clever. Unique. Powerful. Expensive. Flashy. Big. Colorful.

Adjectives like these are those I'd use, although how each one applies can vary. One way to talk about the spirit of Commander is to focus on the colors of the commanders themselves. Both releases (2011 and 2013) of Magic: The Gathering—Commander decks included commanders that were three colors, and decks build on the different advantages the colors contribute. When I think about Commander I often think about these three-color legendary creatures, and how awesome it is to find so many cards of different colors that work together.

But does that mean less-colorful choices aren't in the spirit of the format?