For those of you who didn’t know we have been sold out of Michael J. Flores: Deckade for a little while now but Matt and Brian have apparently completed the next order (at least according to this blog post over at our best friend blog Top 8 Magic).
… And you know what that means!
That’s right: Clear and unrelenting hard-sells from YT post-in and post-out 🙂
Speaking of posts, I have a nifty two- or three-parter coming up starting, um, tonight I think.
It’s about how card advantage works (and here you thought you knew).
You may have seen Josh Ravitz’s Faeries deck from the Top Standard Lists in the Pro Tour Kyoto coverage on the mother ship (congratulations to the great Gabriel Nassif by the way).
On Monday when the Star City lists and thereabouts came out online Josh wanted to chat about decks like EsperLark but I told him that I could not imagine playing one of those decks over just Faeries… If I were going to play a Blue deck, it would be Faeries over any of the Blue Reveillark variants (prevous to this the plan was to run Blightning Beatdown with eight Protection from White creatures in the sideboard). Josh was of course coming off of his excellent PTQ finals 9-1-1 in Edison, NJ where he ran circles around every Faeries mirror match opponent that he faced.
Our assumption was that the most popular decks would be Faeries, Boat Brew, and Blightning Beatdown (in that order), and an assumption of a good matchup with Reflecting Pool Control; we got some of the popularity percentages wrong, but at least knew what the top decks were going to be.
My argument was that no version of Fae was going to be advantaged against Blightning Beatdown in Game One… Why not play “all the cards that are good agaisnt other Blue decks?”
So that’s how we got to our version of Faeries.
4 Sower of Temptation This was a number that I really pushed for: We knew there was going to be a lot of Boat Brew, and we knew that the Boat Brew matchup would improve (in R/W deck’s favor) from a difficult pre-Conflux expectation due to Path to Exile. Mistbind Clique, previously, was the roughest card out of Fae for these decks… but four Sowers is an absolute nightmare out of Fae for Reveillarks.
3 Agony Warp This looks, I know, like a card that should improve the matchups we decided to throw away main (Blightning Beatdown, nothing spectacular in particular against Kithkin), but we positioned it for one reason: Agony Warp is one of the best cards from getting out from under the other guy’s Bitterblossom.
3 Broken Ambitions This is the number of and card we selected for the auxiliary permission spell. Basically they all suck, but this one can silence both a Bitterblossom and a whatever else (say Mulldrifter) with flexibility.
2 Jace Beleren Reflecting Pool Control in particular has issues with active Planeswalkers. I wanted a way to draw cards main, plus there is the curve issue (see Thoughtseize, below).
4 Peppersmoke Like I just said – we wanted a way to draw some extra cards in this post-Ancestral Visions era. 4 Peppersmoke is the strange cousin of 4 Sower of Temptation… Scanning the entirety of the Top Standard Lists, we were the only ones that ran the quad starting, and certainly the only deck with this doubled up configuration. The reason? We wanted to play all the cards that are awesome against Blue decks… Sower of Temptation is the Reveillark nightmare, 4 Peppersmokes give us an edge against other Faeries decks.
3 Thoughtseize And this is the finale to our “forget about trying to beat Blightning main but fight Blue” idea… Think about facing this curve with whatever deck…
Turn 1 Thoughtseize
Turn 2 Bitterblossom
Turn 3 Jace Beleren
Turn 4 Mistbind Clique
Does any other deck have a comparable best curve?
So Josh asked what we are supposed to be sideboarding against beatdown (after chuckling, of course, at our heavy anti-creature main that isn’t supposed to be great against attackers)… The answer was of course… FATHOM TRAWL!
I wanted something to tap out for, under the notion that Blue decks don’t beat decks like Blightning Beatdown with permission. Fathom Trawl is a nice card to tap out for… fills the grip with stuff like Flashfreeze 🙂
We rounded out Agony Warp, Jace, and Thoughtseize; Loxodon Warhammer being the cousin singleton to Fathom Trawl.
Puppeteer Clique was Josh’s idea. Seemed pretty awesome. I’ll have to ask Josh how this worked out against cards like Mulldrifter and Reveillark.
Did I mention “congratulations Yellow Hat?” What a great finals with LSV meeting Nassif in a battle of two of the game’s best.
I’m sure you guys have your own takes on how you should build a Faeries deck… But these were the ideas behind our approach.
This one is going to be more or less a mail bag related to my Naya Burn deck. I will be repeating some stuff from the comments for those of you who don’t follow those closely and answer new reader questions as well.
DavePetterson thinks it’s okay that I didn’t qualify because then you guys get to read posts like Kind of a PTQ Report. To this I say… Greedy!
wills wonders — if “Lash Out is the best burn spell in this deck after Tarfire and Seal of Fire. Yes, better in most cases than Lightning Helix” why we don’t run it main. The answer here is that Lash Out is so effective because it is only featured in games where it will matter. Sure in the PTQ I played in that was all eight rounds, but it would be silly to play main deck in a Red Deck with so many options… Path to Exile might make the cut in Naya Burn but I wouldn’t play it main under any forseeable circumstances.
schwarzott ran this version of Naya Burn to a 5-2 finish in Detroit. He has been having problems with Bant Aggro-Control.4 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Puncture Blast
4 Seal of Fire
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Only two Sulfurous Vortex in the main. I have found that Bant Aggro-Control is pretty easy to beat as long as they are not blowing you out with defensive Jitte counters and Spirit Linked Rhinos. Sulfurous Vortex is very effective against them, especially since they have to deal a little damage to themselves with lands.
When I beat Bant Aggro-Control, I used two two damage spells to take out Rhox War Monk in all the games I won. This deck only has “one set” of Seal of Fire (no Tarfires). While you can theoretically play Incinerate + Seal of Fire or even just a Puncture Blast to hold down the War Monk, the subtle issue is that especially on turn two (or turn three or four for a deck with only 22 lands) you can find yourself with insufficient mana to respond.
Subtly, the sideboard is an issue. Bant Aggro-Control really needs to beat you with equipment (other than games where you get blown out by Troll + Worship… No outs against that presently). The schwarzott version simply has the wrong reactive cards. Shattering Spree is sometimes more devastating against Affinity (and sometimes not), but Ancient Grudge is so much better than equipment-reliant Blue decks like Fae or Bant Aggro-Control because most of the time Shattering Spree will not give you any card advantage. When the card you are advantaging is as vital to the opponent’s strategy as Umezawa’s Jitte… etc. etc. I have won a fair amount of the time by letting the opponent commit 4-5 lands only to use instant speed artifact hate mid-combat to fart in their direction. In fact most of my wins have been based on Vortex, killing their Jitte, or good old Jitte advantage… and this version has no Jitte of its own! (Jitte has been pretty good in a lot of matchups, including Bant).
DAisaka09 makes a good point about 8 “Shocks” and the mirror which is full of three toughness creatures. I have been lucky to have won most or all of my mirror matches, and for sure I have drawn the three damage creature kill spells to deal with Apes and Nacatls. I can see maybe 1-2 Rift Bolt being better than the main deck Jittes I proposed in the previous post, or Incinerate again, as a two-of.I don’t think I would consider Puncture Blast, but I have heard good things about it from various directions, actually.
Dear zsievers,Pyrostatic Pillar is quite good against Storm.
When you are ahead, it basically makes “every matchup into the Zoo matchup” … That is, a matchup where the opponent is taking lots of collateral damage and therefore falls into burn range.
I have come around due to my loss in the second Faeries bout that maybe main deck Pyrostatic Pillar is not optimal… Overvaluing it probably cost me the match.
TheAmericanNightmare doesn’t like Keldon Marauders very much.Personally, I thought it was good. I sided it out against decks like Faerie Wizards, but I like the card very much when the opponent is the beatdown. It does a lot of damage in a hurry against a Storm, and I love the card against opposing attack decks. I was pretty sure Luis Neiman (Luis Not Vargas) had Blistering Firecat in our match and tapped for the Marauders anyway, and just soaked up three while he committed four mana (I already had Tarmogoyf on board as well as another Marauders in hand). At this stage I would not cut it.
I think the mana base is pretty good. I like the Mountains because this deck is not Zoo. I don’t particularly like taking 100 damage from my lands. I would consider adding more Plains in order to run Duergar Hedge-Mage… lots of decent players are suggesting I add that card.
thewachman wanted to hear about Osyp’s Slide deck… We already covered that here.
ReAnimator wanted to know why I didn’t run Magma Jet (long time readers know I love a Magma Jet and even played it in Legacy). I wanted a card that could deal three damage in Lash Out is the simple answer, Magma Jet being not really good enough for the main here.
mpace started reading Dune thanks to one of my previous articles. This is inspiring for me! Thanks! I think I am going to spend more time on book and comics recommendations (especially as Osyp has no knowledge of obscure graphic novels).
Hello, my name is Osyp and Mike asked me to guest host his blog.
One of the more awkward requests I’ve gotten, but Mike’s a friend so I was more than happy to oblige.
I suppose the only relevant thing to this blog I can write about, since I don’t like Liz Phair or obscure graphic novels, is my recent PTQ win.
I played GWR Slide at the PTQ in Edison this past weekend and went 7-1 in the swiss. I actually build Slide every season and hope that it’s good; thankfully this time around it’s actually quite good in this current environment.
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Spark Spray
3 Path to Exile
3 Life from the Loam
3 Edge of Autumn
3 Lightning Rift
3 Astral Slide
2 Wrath of God
The best deck in the format is Faeries, and Slide just happens to be very good against it. This was the matchup I tested the most prior to the PTQ and as long as you’re patient and play correctly it’s difficult to lose. They really don’t have an effective way to beat you, and you have several threats that they can’t really answer. That being said, Faeries can be difficult depending on what build they’re playing. If they’re playing Herbey’s deck from the GP (main deck Trinket mage package and Shackles) than the matchup can actually be difficult, as you have no main deck answer to shackles and they can tutor a relic to break up your loam engine. However that version is surprisingly unpopular and most either play Owen’s UB build or a more standard Mono U version with Glen Elendra and Sowers and no Shackles!
You’re also very good against the best aggressive deck in the format, Affinity, and have a very strong matchup against GB Loam. Game 1 they can’t answer your enchantments, and after board any plan they may have against you (Extirpate, Krosan Grip) can just get trumped by Ajani Vengeant, which will always win the game.
Red decks are also favorable for you, although Vortex gives them a good shot game 1 of stealing a win. However I still feel like your favorable against any red deck as in testing I very rarely lost a best of 3.
Then there’s combo. Elves is a reasonable matchup because unless they draw multiple Glimpse they can’t keep up with your removal and you’ll eventually wear them down. TEPS on the other hand is unwinnable. I knew this going in and didn’t even bother with any sideboard slots as it won’t make any difference, you cannot win. This did not scare me away mainly because I don’t think TEPS is a very consistent deck, it’s probably the least consistent in the entire field (including All-in Red). I don’t think the deck has a real shot of winning a PTQ and I stand by that comment. If you also look at the PTQ results, it rarely makes T8 and even scanning the room at a PTQ, you won’t see many at the top tables. That being said, that doesn’t mean people won’t play it, but the odds are you will only have to play it once, and you can afford to take a loss given your strength against the rest of the field.
With all that said, I don’t think that Slide is the most powerful deck in the format, however the main reason I played it was that I knew I could play it well and wouldn’t make many mistakes. That’s really all you can ask when you’re deciding what to play. If you’re not planning on playing Faeries, you need to ask yourself “Can I play this deck well enough to give myself an edge over less prepared opponents?” Because the truth is 90% of the people you play at a PTQ are not well prepared, and the other 10% is where the luck factor is going to need to come in.
In the T8 I actually lost to my good friend Gerard playing Herbey’s version of Fae which I mentioned earlier, however he was already qualified and conceded. I then beat Kithkin 2-0 in T4 and Josh Ravitz playing UB Faeries in the finals 2-0.
I think the deck is a real contender and would recommend it if you expect a lot of Faeries and Affinity at your PTQ. Just don’t be scared off by TEPS and practice a lot, because there are a handful of decisions you need to make each turn (particularly turn 1-3) and the wrong one will drastically change the outcome.
For instance, against Fae post board you need to be careful with your cycling lands and loam. Let’s say your opening hand is a Windswept Heath, Ghost Quarter, Tranquil Thicket and Life from the Loam. Game 1 you would probably sacrifice the heath for a stomping ground, cycle the thicket and untap and play loam. However after board Fae is likely to bring in Relic, therefore that sequence would be terrible for you if they Spell Snare’d your Loam and then played a Relic. A smart Fae player would never play turn 1 Relic for that reason alone. If they do they give you too much information and allow you to make the correct play which is to play the Thicket turn 1. Post board the best way to play around Relic is to just make your land drops and not worry about it until later in the game when you draw an Ancient Grudge. The game will go long, so don’t feel rushed to cycle and dig for cards because there’s no need.
sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Lash Out
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
Commentary
This is essentially what I posted at the end of last week. The only difference is a swap of two Incinerates for two Tarfires. I told Osyp I wanted to play like one Tarfire and he said that he thought that Incinerate was the weakest card in my deck. If I had to do it over again, I would have played all four Tarfires and no Incinerates; moreover I would have done something with those Pyrostatic Pillars. There is a longer winded way of putting this, but they under-performed.
Part 2: Anticlimax
I went 6-2.
Osyp beat Josh in the finals, Slide over Faeries. Josh went 9-1-1 with his only loss being to Osyp.
My favorite Josh moment was in the quarterfinals. Josh came back to win Game One. He was absolutely demolished in the Faeries mirror. Stuck on three lands. Down zero Riptide Laboratories to two, lands down three to seven or thereabouts. Pulled it out.
“At what point would you would you have given up?” he asked me between games.
So Game Two. He has three mana untapped and a bunch of lands. End of his turn. There is a relevant Spellstutter Sprite on the board, but backed up by no mana.
Josh Mana Leaks it rather than spending his Spell Snare (leaving up the one for the Snare). The implications of this decision were many but I only thought one thing, almost fatherly: At what point did you get so much better than me?
So of course this was followed by untap, Future Sight (tapping out), and the concession from Ravitz 🙂
Osyp played brilliantly against Josh in what was not only a lopsided matchup (in Osyp’s favor) but where Josh mulliganed several times, and both games.
Osyp’s facility with Ghost Quarter and Astral Slide to resolve spells was the kind of stuff that they write textbooks about. They were the kind of plays that seem absolutely correct when you see them going onto the stack, but that 80% of players will never see… The same players will complain about bad draws or being mana shy when they explain why they lost.
As for my tournament, I beat Tezzerator, Faerie Wizards, the Adrian Sullivan Ponza deck, Zoo, Bant Aggro-Control, and the Lightning Bolt Deck; I lost to Faeries and All-in Red. Notably I never played Affinity.
The only interesting matchup of the day was my second bout against Faeries. I have won literally every Game One I have ever played with Naya Burn against Faeries; that said, I have lost a fair number of sideboarded games, so it was obvious to me that I was doing something wrong at some point.
The problem was at least in part that I was winning all of those Game Ones (win the flip or no), meaning that I was always on the draw in Game Two. My model included valuing Pyrostatic Pillar, so I was forcing myself to make room for more Pillars… but they are not particularly good going second in sideboarded games. I was usually cutting two Lightning Helixes to fit my three Lash Outs (though this is something I am comfortable doing in many matchups, including Zoo-ish matchups… Lash Out is almost always better since you have to invest three life to make three life under pressure); and that was sub-optimal.
So Game One I won in a hurry. Concession on turn four, I believe.
Game Two I went to Paris, took some damage from lands, and foud myself with a pair of Lash Outs and a pair of Ancient Grudges in hand (I sided in two for this game). My board was a Wild Nacatl and a Mogg Fanatic.
He was doing not so much, played Thirst for Knowledge for no bonus, untapped, and played Threads of Disloyalty on my Nacatl (1/1 on his side, I believe). I ran Lash Out for value and got in with Mogg.
He played Sower of Temptation #1; I got him with the Mogg and got more value with the Lash Out, but nothing still.
He played a naked Sower.
I finally ripped a Tarmogoyf.
He ripped yet another Sower and killed me in basically one swing.
So I was on the play in the third game. I thought quite a bit about this and decided that I was going to morph into a 100% burn / anti-Jitte deck, taking out all my Nacatls, Apes, and ‘Goyfs. The reason is that even though I “shouldn’t” lose to Sower of Temptation very often, I was not likely to beat a Threads of Disloyalty on Tarmogoyf… and this game he showed me Firespout, Sower, Threads, and Chrome Mox… and since he played Thirst for Knowledge, I felt it safe to assume he was packing Vedalken Shackles, too.
Therefore he was an anti-creature Faeries deck, and if I made myself a creature-poor burn deck, I might be able to ride the repositioning. As it turns out, he out-sideboarded me and presented two Glen Elendra Archmages. I drew two Ancient Grudges and all three Jittes but he still out-Jitte’d me thanks to Academy Ruins. The sheet said “4” at the end of the game, but he had an active Jitte, so who knows what his true life total was? That said, it was probably closer than it should have been.
My other loss was to All-in Red in two non-competitive games where he mised on the first turn. In either game if he didn’t follow up with Blood Moon I think I could have won. Nothing to say here… That deck shouldn’t do well, but you can’t complain about those kinds of matchups in the loser’s bracket.
Of the rest of my matches the most interesting was v. Luis Neiman (aka Luis not Vargas) right after I had dropped. He convinced me to un-drop and then we were paired! Pulled it out after getting face planted by Blistering Firecat in Game One (actually tagged all three games by that guy to one degree or another). Luis Molten Rained me to a Mutavault in Game Two and drew nothing, so I came back to force the third.
Part 3: What If… ?
I have to think on the new version of the deck list for a while, but I think I would play this again. Probably look something like this main:
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Seal of Fire
4 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Tarfire
The Jitte’s a little out of place… Maybe Lash Out or Incinerate? Lash Out is the best burn spell in this deck after Tarfire and Seal of Fire. Yes, better in most cases than Lightning Helix. For example against one of the burn decks There was a Sulfurous Vortex in play before I even had the White for Helix! (Though admittedly it saved me from Zoo with a little careful damage stacking). In general you have to invest a couple of life to get back a couple of life… Still a great card, just not as good as Lash Out in a strategy that wants to hurt the opponent.
[Phase] III is a special point that exists for some decks where that deck is actively dictating the field of battle and only a small subset of the opponent’s cards still matter. For those decks, getting to Phase III is really what they are all about; if left unchecked for a turn or so (again, varies format-to-format… some decks will continue to dictate the field of battle for seven to ten turns after establishing Phase III), they basically win.
I was thinking about Sulfuric Vortex this week.
Isn’t Sulfuric Vortex the secret Stage Three? Isn’t it at least rubbing up against Stage Three?
Let’s examine Sulfuric Vortex, at least some of the time…
Are you actively dictating the field of battle when you run this card out there? The answer is often. Not always, maybe, but often enough.
Do only a small subset of the opponent’s cards still matter? The answer is sometimes. Not always, but when you are actively dictating the field of battle and Sulfuric Vortex is relevant, it will many times be the case that the opponent will “lose on the spot.” And by “one the spot” I don’t mean immediately, but the writing will be on the wall [provided he doesn’t dig his way out]. And how many ways will he be able to dig his way out? A small subset.
Sulfuric Vortex is the secret Stage Three because it’s not obviously a Stage Three strategy. It is not obvious because it doesn’t always operate Stage Three-ish (I play online a lot and in Red Deck mirrors it often feels like you are gambling a bit… and you can certainly be raced). But that is true for the Loop Junktion combo, too. Infinite life gain can be trumped by infinite damage… it’s Stage Three-ness is invalidated Life v. Aluren, therefore.
Just to be clear, I understand that calling Sulfuric Vortex Stage Three is a little bit of a stretch… but only a little, I think. Anyway, it makes me feel better.
The concluding paragraph of The Breakdown of Theory:
All that said, I decided to re-think some of the broad strategies that I have embraced over the past couple of years. Most of my Green Extended decks have something in common: Even when they have solid Phase III suppression, basically none of them have real Phase III power (unless you count Eternal Dragon trumping Aggro-Flow, which happened basically every time). By contrast, when I was one of the more successful Standard deck designers, my decks had both rich Defensive Deck Speed and legitimate Phase III play. Threads of Disloyalty and Remand were supplemented by tapping out for Keiga. Lightning Helix and Firemane Angel bought time for Hellbent Demonfire.
There is still a balance to be hand, but this last part is homework for me.
I feel like I’ve plugged up some nagging problems I’ve had with my game over the past two years. I plan to win tomorrow.
LOVE
MIKE
PS So this is what I am thinking about before going to bed.
I decided earlier this week that I am going to play Naya Burn on Saturday.
It was really down to Naya Burn or the Lightning Bolt Deck and I was actually on the Lightning Bolt Deck for a few hours before talking to Red Deck master Patrick Sullivan. If there is one player in the multiverse who you want to listen to when trying to win a PTQ with little Red men, it’s Patrick Sullivan.
PSulli instructed me to not play the Lightning Bolt Deck (despite his solid performance with the archetype at Grand Prix Los Angeles) and to play Naya Burn in the alternative.
So why play only one of these two decks?
I noticed that I have been collapsing late in tournaments. I am old now, see. Even tournaments where I make a run for the Top 8 I am typically winded by round six or seven. And win it all? I haven’t won a PTQ in three years.
But with long years come long teeth and a long view. Among the weapons at my disposal is an understanding of the physical realities of playing with Magic cards. We are playing with real cards, remember. We live in a real universe with real interactions with not just our opponents but our own bodies. I have made some improvements to mine recently but I decided that I want to try to give myself a little more breathing room if possible.
Look at it like this: I am likely to win in the early rounds not matter which reasonable deck I choose. However consider I play MWC… If I play MWC even against a helpless and incompetent opponent I am consigning myself to playing about sixty turns, just to get out of the first round! Now multiply that by the eleven or so rounds required to win a PTQ. Can it be done? Of course! But the fact of the matter is that — for me Me ME — and the fact that I have been gassing late in tournaments, I just wanted to try to preserve as much psychic energy as possible.
In the same situation with Naya Burn (that is, an incompetent and helpless opponent) I could win the same match in ten total turns.
Plus, Naya Burn (and the Lightning Bolt Deck for that matter) has a secret Stage Three (kind of) but can get there without having a million mana in play. One of the things that has bothered me about my game for about the last five years is that I have relied over much on having a lot of lands in play; I was once able to play to Top 8 caliber in premiere events stuck on one land.
sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Lash Out
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
(my likely PTQ list)
1) Pyrostatic Pillar is there to turn “every matchup in to the Zoo matchup” … It has been working out pretty well as a two-of in the main. You’ll notice this is the only two-of (and I hate two-ofs in general) in a deck full of four-ofs. Well, that’s what happens when you play 22 lands.
2) I like Lash Out quite a bit. If Incinerate is good enough for Extended, surely the same is true for Lash Out.
4) What’s better, swapping in main deck Kataki (over Keldon Marauders) for mise value or figuring out how to transform into a Gargadon Sadin style deck?
Congratulations and condolences to Bill Stark who lost in the Top 8 (finals I think?) of the Magic Cruise PTQ.
Bill played an Affinity deck with four main deck Delay!
Delay is a particularly good card in Affinity due to that deck’s sometimes vulnerability to Ancient Grudge. One Delay should give most Affinity draws more than enough time to just kill the Ancient Grudge packing opponent before the original Grudge resolves, let alone rebuy shenanigans.
This video is a short showcase of Kenneth Ellis’s PTQ-winning Bant Aggro-Control deck. The Bant deck has numerous angles of attack and paths to victory (as well as opportunities to disrupt the opponent’s forward momentum). I would definitely consider playing it.
Consider this a sneak preview of this week’s Top Decks 🙂
Kenneth’s deck, which won the San Diego area PTQ the last week of January:
Now when I say that I would consider playing this deck, I am of course lumping it in a general sense with “Critical Mass” per the previous post “What Would MichaelJ Do?”. I think that either strategy could potentially gain from Noble Hierarch, particularly on the Tarmogoyf fight (Tarmogoyf race)-winning side(s).
Kenneth’s deck also plays Gaddock Teeg, which was so troublesome for me when I was playing ponderous control strategies earlier in the season; I don’t know how that would intersect with Path to Exile at this point, other than the fact that Kenneth’s deck has some basics to find and could itself benefit from some Path to Exile attention.
As you will see in an upcoming video, while Red is nice in the Critcal Mass-style sideboards, White is just a hammer. Poor Affinity.
I was talking to Mrs. MichaelJ today — not that she remotely understands or for that matter cares about Magic: The Gathering — and told her that I have been doing commentary on this game for going on 15 years and I still don’t understand what motivates people to make the deck decisions that they do. The most popular decks (at least until the onset of Faeries in Standard and Extended) are for the most part so uniformly unplayable that they only win because so many people play them that one of those buggers mathematically has to win (U/G Madness in Block and Standard are good examples, later Tooth and Nail, then White Weenie…).
Today in Extended Faerie Wizards and Affinity seem to be the most popular decks. For once I would consider playing the most popular deck. Faeries is pretty good and exciting! It crept into the metagame because Spellstutter Sprite is so good against Glimpse of Nature and stayed because people noticed that end of turn guys wearing the best equipment, covered by Counterspell, is good in basically every matchup.
Affinity I would not consider despite the fact that I have always respected it. You just can’t beat someone who really really wants to beat you. It’s really just a question of definition. Some people think that sideboarding Ancient Grudge means you beat Affinity. I am the kind of person who would play all the Shattering Sprees and Smash to Smithereens, or not just Ancient Grudge but Kataki, War’s Wage if the mana held it (or Kataki, War’s Wage with Akroma’s Vengeance and Path to Exile starting).
Which leads me to the conclusion of this short post.
My first PTQ is coming up this weekend. This is a short list of decks that I would consider playing:
Critical Mass (considering switching to U/G/W configuration for Kataki, War’s Wage over the Red Ancient Grudge setup, combined with a possible move to Noble Hierarch over Birds of Paradise)
Mono-White Control (I am just not sure if I am considering this because I am fundamentally contrary or because I actually think it is [still] good)… Bill Stark recently said he thought the Faeries matchup is receding, but there is something to be said for a deck that is good to great against Faeries, Affinity, and Red Decks
The Lightning Bolt Deck or Naya Burn (I just like Naya Burn)… I feel like with my new mindset and calmer mulligan model I would benefit from playing a deck like The Lightning Bolt Deck at this point in the season with this amount of practice underneath my belt (that is, a lot in terms of hours… but unfocused for the most part in terms of specific deck)
I just don’t have the patience to play Storm; I tried to play a Storm combo deck last season and I became frustrated and refused to do the math… It is strange because I am very good at burn / beatdown math but I just lose interest in combo math and just “go for it” too often. I know this is a limitation on my part, but it is obviously a good reason to shy away from that kind of a deck. Faeries I respect but I have no model for how to win the mirror and no interest in learning in the next four days. Ergo, one of the above four is the girl for me.