Magic Deck Vortex: Memories of a Jarhead.

In this edition, we will be talking in depth about one of my favorite cards, Memory Jar. We will discuss theory, strategy, deck construction, and have plenty of tournament coverage from throughout the world… wait, where are you going? Of course we won’t talk about those things. This is "A Casual Site," remember? *sinister looking grin*

Why exactly is Memory Jar so good? To find out, we need to take a look at the card in two different perspectives. First, we will look at it from my perspective, the controller of the Jar. Then, we will look at it from the perspective of my opponent. Within those perspectives, we should also look at two different scenarios; during my turn and during my opponent’s turn.

By sacrificing the Jar during my turn, I gain access to seven new cards while not having access to the previous cards until the end of the turn. Unlike my opponent, being the active player I can play any spell type. Knowing that this is only a temporary hand, I probably can feel free to cast at will. However, in that frame of mind, I should also remember that my opponent now also has a potential of seven counterspells at his disposal. While I may have had an idea of what was in my opponent’s hand before, I probably have no clue as to what he is holding right now, except that it is most likely a safe bet that he drew two to four lands.

I should also consider that if I am playing any type of Control, I should retain some mana to use during my opponent’s turn too so I am able to cast the cards from my other hand… wait, what were those cards again?

It may seem foolish to use the Jar during an opponent’s turn at first glance; however, there are some potentially strong plays that can happen out of this.

First, to cover the basics, we must remember that I am going to be limited to only playing instants and cards with flash. We must also remember that my opponent will be able to play all the cards that he draws due to the Jar.

The most obvious benefit is what I like to call the "Oh Bleep" factor, or the "Crap on a Stick" factor, or sometimes it is called the "The Goat" factor. (If you haven’t heard Adam Sandler’s "The Goat," then you won’t understand that last reference, but you should get it and listen to it as your life cannot possibly be complete if you have never listened to "The Goat" at least a couple hundred times. While listening to it, wait for the sentence that follows the goat running, the ball flying, and the loud thud of the ball hitting the goat.) What is this factor I continue to label? It is the reaction you get when you are playing a Blue Control deck, you are holding a Mana Leak as your only form of defense, and your opponent taps four lands to cast Armageddon, leaving three untapped lands available.

The next words out of your mouth indicate which factor you chose to go with, but your ultimate response is to reach out, set your hand on the Jar, take a deep breath, and pray to God that you get a Power Snk in the next seven cards, and turn that bad boy sideways.

Pop goes the Jar, into the hand goes the Power Sink, onto the stack goes the Power Sink, to the graveyard goes the Armageddon, tapped go his lands, and then to the graveyard go his seven cards and your six.

The other method is that you break open the Jar when your opponent ends his turn.

313.1 - As the end of turn step begins, all abilities that trigger "at end of turn" go on the stack. (See Rule 410, "Handling Triggered Abilities.") Then the active player gets priority and players may play spells and abilities. [CompRules 2003/07/01]

See, you get priority during his end of turn step, and when you get priority you pop the Jar open to see what goodies you can find. Yummy! A Boomerang! Here is an Unsummon! Yay, an Opportunity! The rest of your hand fills out with two lands, an Argivian Find, and a Counterspell.

313.2 - If "at end of turn"-triggered abilities are created or if cards with "at end of turn"-triggered abilities come into play after preexisting ones have already gone on the stack at the beginning of the end of turn step, those abilities won't go on the stack until the next turn's end phase. In other words, the step doesn't "back up" so new "at end of turn"-triggered abilities can go on the stack. This only applies to triggered abilities that say "at end of turn." It doesn't apply to continuous effects whose durations say "until end of turn" or "this turn." (See Rule 314, "Cleanup Step.") [CompRules 2003/07/01]

…and we popped the Jar after the effects would be added to the stack, then the Jar will not switch our hands until my End Phase. So we will keep these cards, plus the one I will draw for turn and then switch back hands later for more fun.

After drawing the mentioned card, I unload my arsenal on my opponent, especially with my card drawn for turn, Sunder. For kicks and giggles, I decide that I will be torturous about things, and not forgetting that this IS "Evil Combo Theme Week," I first Boomerang that there Phyrexian Arena, I then Unsummon that Hypnotic Specter, and finally I will cast Opportunity, targeting you. Having nothing more to do at the second, I pass priority and let things begin to resolve. Now you have seven cards from the Jar, a Phyrexian Arena, a Hypnotic Specter, and four other cards in hand. I guess I am done with my fun stuff for now; we can enter the End Phase.

At this point, the Jar’s "discard your hand and return the original hand" ability is added to the stack. For dramatic effect, I shout, “OH! One more thing…” I tap down and cast Sunder. Being on top of the stack, Sunder resolves before the Jar does, returning all the lands in play to their owners' hands. With a mighty laugh, I nod that I have nothing more to do and I let the Jar do its thing. First we discard our hands, and then return our previous cards to our hands.

At this point, I would begin telling you about the Jar from the perspective of my opponent; however, that is not nearly as important as the evil things I will do to you with my Jar, so let’s just get on to more fun plays that are possible with the Jar, and its Timeshifted counterpart Magus of the Jar.

(Just to sooth your curiosity, the perspective of the opponent most likely is, "Aw man! I am getting ready to discard a bunch of cards because you are never going to break open the Jar at an opportunity where I can actually use some of the cards.")

I have a story for you here, as I couldn’t possibly call this a Memories article without a cool story. Here goes:

I found myself in a multi-player game one evening with my two brothers-in-law, Sam and Dave. Now, I know it might sound like I am stealing the names from Amadeus, but those really are their names. Sam would fit in here nicely at MDV, as he plays very similar to this group of casual players, while Dave picked up after me and wanted to dominate people with nasty combos and Control. I don’t know how I taught Sam and he ended up a Johnny, but that is a different story.

While in the middle of this game, the two boys decided to bum rush me and do it on back-to-back turns so I could not defend myself. I was playing a bad Combo deck that tried to win with Anvil of Bogardan and Megrim. My plan was that I could kill both players in ten turns after I play the Megrim; I just needed to control their creatures long enough to get those ten turns. I was doing just that by playing Propaganda and Sunder. Basically every time they would get mana built up to attack me, I would Sunder in response to them declaring an attack.

The strategy for me was that eventually, they would get sick of being Sundered, and they would then attack each other, with help of some diplomacy on my part. (“If you attack Dave, I promise I won’t Sunder.”) Inevitability finally set in when I ran out of Sunder power, and they regained the mana base to attack me. Dave attacked first, bringing me low enough for Sam to finish me off on his turn, and when the turn was passed, Sam sent in his troops. Both of the guys had to tap out completely in order to over-power Propaganda and attack with enough force to hurt me, so I felt safe in my decision to break my Memory Jar during Sam’s turn.

I did so, and top-decked like a champion. I drew into enough instant creature hate to thwart the attack, although I still did take damage. Sam left me at two life. I knew my other hand had nothing in it, and so feeling that I was doomed anyways, I felt the best way to go out was to go with a bang!

The Memory Jar had produced another Sunder, and so I cast it, and in response to it I Boomeranged one of Dave’s creatures. My entire plan was to simply tick the guys off, knowing that I would be dead the second Dave got an attack phase. He had two Birds of Paradise in play, and so he could pay the Propaganda cost. He also had two creatures in play that would deal two damage, so either way I could not remove all the damage from the table.

At that point I set my hand down and sighed. Both boys were looking at me like I was crazy. It had been a really long time since I lost a game with the guys. I was actually feeling pretty bummed out to tell you the truth. Sam broke my gloom first with a, “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to say you’re done so I can draw my land and tell Dave to kill me. What do you think I am doing? Standing on my head singing 'We Are the World?'” They laughed at this and then Dave spoke. Actually, he didn’t speak a word, he simply pointed and laughed.

I had totally forgotten that I had a Megrim in play. I also forgot that I had cast Sunder, returning all the lands in play to our hands. I had even forgot that I had sacrificed the Jar, and that as soon as Sam finished his turn, we would all discard our hands and return our original hands.

In total shock I looked at the two boys' hands. They both held at least ten cards. “Wha… Holy [MONKEY]!” With that, Sam ended his turn and both of their heads exploded. I jumped up and ran a victory lap around the room, hoisting my favorite card in the world above my head, looking like an idiot the entire time.

Let’s face it; while it is fun to actually play the cards we get from the Jar, it is much more fun to be unexpected (not to mention being evil and cruel at the same time). What would be more unexpected than calling for the end of your turn and then discarding… to the removed-from-the-game pile! Then fire those Fiery Tempers, Violent Eruptions, Basking Rootwallas, and Arrogant Wurms at your opponent when he least expects them.

I could include Flashback here as well. Any cards that are usable from the graveyard simply need a way to get there. The Jar does that in great quantity. From what I hear, Call of the Herd and Roar of the Wurm are fans of Memory Jar.

I kind of stole this combo from Ryuzaki’s article. He was talking (no news there) about his article and when he mentioned the Rings, I stopped reading and soared through my subconscious thought, just dreaming about the possibilities.

I first crack open a Jar, pay two mana to copy the ability on the stack, then I set hand number one aside and draw seven cards. I then get priority again, so if I wanted to I could cast any instants from this group of cards. When we both pass priority, the second Jar resolves, sending hand number two to sit next to hand number one, and I draw into another seven cards. Now I can play a land for the turn, cast an artifact like Memory Jar and another one like Sculpting Steel (targeting the previous artifact), maybe put an enchantment into play… say this Megrim here.

Then I could sacrifice my newly sculpted Jar, pay 2 via the Rings, and for good measure I could then sacrifice the Jar, pay 2 again to put a forth copy of the Jar ability on the stack. When we finally get to hand number seven, I might get a little saddened to know that my opponent won’t be seeing his next turn, as when I end the turn he will receive (2 x 7) x 6 or 84 points of damage. That is assuming that he had 42 or more cards in his library to begin with. (Me too by the way!)

I love having Ryu in the Writer’s Guild, as he makes my research a whole heck of a lot easier. Whilst he was talking (…no… Ryu?), he also mentioned using Sneak Attack. WOW! Talk about your all time oversights; why had I not seen this one earlier? How about milling on crack-cocaine?

Say you have a Sneak Attack in play. You not only are sitting pretty under normal circumstances, but in this case you are ready to power mill your opponent into the dust. First, you need to have a Magus of the Jar in hand. What? You don’t have one?

Great! Now we have a Magus of the Jar in hand. Simply pump a Red mana into Sneak Attack and fire the Magus into play. Now slow down… you don’t want to ruin things if you don’t have to. Do you have a Vesuvan Shapeshifter in hand? You do? Pump another Red into Sneak Attack and throw it into play then.

Now sacrifice the Magus to get a new hand. Wow! Look at that! There is a Body Double and another Shapeshifter in this hand. Pump some Red into them and send them into play. Sacrifice some more, and continue. Between the Body Double, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Clone, and the original, you should be able to mill your opponent out in no time. You might want to also pack a Feldon’s Cane or two… just to be sure.

Are you kidding me?! I have to end the article already? I was just starting to have fun grinding out peoples' libraries and hit points. Not to mention that I didn’t even get a chance to make a single deck with these combos. Well, before I go, let me leave you with one more…

The main advantage to the Jar is that it reaches fairly deep into your library and gets you new cards to keep your combos flowing nicely. A lot of times, your combo may end early simply because you ran out of steam before you could fully explode your opponent’s cranium with the Storm Seeker, or whatever other combo kill spell you chose to utilize. The Jar gives that last extra grab at the needed cards in order to finish off the combo.

In this combo, we are again milling an opponent (and myself), however, we are teaming up with Mirari and some singly nasty cards that are pretty similar to the Jar. To set up the combo, you need a few things going in the direction of the combo. You will need to get a few copies of Wheel of Fate floating in suspend-land. Unless you have ways of getting those counters off of the Wheels, you will have four turns of wait time, which stinks. You can, however, use this time to set up the rest of the combo. You will need to get a good amount of mana into play so you can both cast Mirari (a five casting-cost artifact) and be able to untap and use it repeatedly when the Wheels begin resolving. You may consider cards like Rites of Flourishing or Mana Flare, you could use artifact mana for the acceleration, or just use Green and rip lands out of your library. I would probably steer clear or the latter, as you don’t want to deck yourself.

Finally, when you see the final counters removed from the Wheels, get ready, set, break the JAR!

Well… first things first. You need to answer the imaginary Mirari triggers that will be popping up as the Wheels zing onto the stack. I always find myself imagining Magic Online when visualizing combos. I see the counters falling off of Wheels, at which point I am prompted to select the order of which the two Wheels of the same thing will be added to the stack (that always annoyed me). I pick the first one and away it flies onto begin the stack, then all the sudden Mirari stops everything and says, “Do you want me to copy that for you?”

“Why, yes I do, here is three colorless mana, thanks for the reminder.” Zing! The new copy flies over and joins the original copy of the Wheel. Now the second Wheel starts flying to the stack and that familiar little voice speaks again.

“I would like. Thanks a lot, here is three colorless mana for your troubles.” Mirari shimmers a second and a copy of the Wheel flies over and joins the other three copies.

And so the stack begins to tremble as it begins to tower with the four items on it. Now… back to where we started, with the Jar. You pop the Jar and add its ability to the stack.

The reason you break the Jar open is to maximize the number of cards you can rip from their library. It also controls what cards your opponent will end up with after what is getting ready to happen to him; namely, the cards he is holding right now. Yes, you can do this without the Jar, but what fun would that be?

Again the towering stack sways, and with no new additions to it, the first thing resolves: the Jar. My hand flutters and flies over into a window that holds the cards nice and neat, face down, and locked away from my prying eyes. My library flings seven cards at me, which magically land perfectly fanned in my hand. (Wow, neat trick.) Just about the time I get a chance to look at those new cards, the stack removes the next item, and all of my new cards fall out of my hand and land right in the damn graveyard! There goes my one damn copy of Wheel of Fortune! Stupid Restricted list.

Just like before, my library throws seven more cards, and no matter how fast I move my hand around, all the cards land perfectly fanned in it, at which point I refuse to look at the hand, because I don’t want to know what is in there. They fall out of my hand in a minute and my hand is refilled. This continues until the stack is empty. I move into the draw phase, where I get one additional card to flutter into my hand, and I get priority in my main phase. Slightly exhausted, I peek at the graveyard and get bent out of shape at all the spells that are in the grave, and the number of basic lands that are in my hand.

What the heck? Shouldn’t this thing be working out in my favor? What happened? I should have drawn into a Wheel of Fortune, which I cast, copied with Mirari, and then ended with a Windfall, which I cast and copied, and then finished up by shaking my opponent’s hand! I can’t Mirari a basic land!

That’s too bad Chris. The fact of the matter is that the show needed to end somehow, and you were not making this easy on the network. You are long-winded, and didn’t even get a commercial in to pay the electric bill. So we rigged your deck and now you lose. Game over, time to hit the road.

Thanks for stopping by to read another action-packed Memories article. Tune in next time when Chris will actually have a point behind the article and not just ramble on an on about a card. We get it Chris, we get it.

Oh, and before I left you guys go, I want to leave you something. A contest! Why else would I show up… to read his article? Pshh.

You know, being this evil is very fun, but sometimes it is even more fun to share in that evil spirit. That is exactly what I intend on doing. This is your chance MDV. You get to show the world exactly how evil you are.

You may have noticed that above, there were a bunch of combos given, but not a single deck provided. Chris told you how to utilize the combos in their lethal capabilities; now it is your turn to make those combos come to life.

Your contest is to make a deck, based on one or more of the above combos. The deck must follow all common deck construction rules. You can use the Vintage card pool, with its Restricted and Banned lists. It can be of any style you wish, but it has to be a vicious deck.

The best deck will win you some points, as this contest counts towards the MDV Super Series as a Minor Event. The deadline for your entries will be next Friday, May 2. Submit your deck in the thread that Streetz will provide to discuss this article.

Are you ready for the Evil that seems to be over taking MDV? I hope so, because it is coming for you.

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