You Lika The Juice? - Magic, Morphine, & Meat

So, let’s get the obvious questions out of the way right away.

Yes, I went ahead and played Project Z with a few minor changes from the decklist I posted last week. I’ll put up the new decklist and thoughts on it a little later.

I did not qualify for Nationals with it, so if you’re looking for cutting edge technology from Regionals, you probably won’t find it here. Not that this surprises most of you, but I figured I’d clarify that right off the bat in case you’re just skimming for tech. I finished 3-2-1 with the deck, but the results may be a little bit fluky if you look at what I played against.

Before you go though, there’s a situation that arose during Regionals Saturday, and I’m genuinely curious to see what the Magic community at large thinks. It didn’t involve me, but it involved two players I know, and it begs the question: What would you do in this situation?

Say you’re playing Solar Flare. You know your opponent is playing Dragonstorm, and he knows you’re what you are playing. He starts out with Sleight of Hand. You lead off with a Signet on your second turn. At the end of your turn, your opponent plays Telling Time, puts a card in his hand, one on the bottom of his deck, one on top. You reach out and cut his deck afterwards. Your opponent is visibly upset, so obviously the card on top was something he wanted. A judge is called. The judge rules your cut was unintentional, a reflexive move from the fact that your opponent was fiddling with his deck. You get a warning. An appeal to the head judge upholds the ruling, and play is ordered to continue with the new, unknown card on top of your opponent’s deck that he’s about to draw during his turn.

You have a Persecute and land in hand, so you’re going to cast the awesome turn 3 Persecute that typically breaks the back of Dragonstorm. Your opponent’s only hope is to have a counter in his hand, and if he does he can possibly go off during his next turn. Based on his reaction to your cut, it’s probable that you cut him away from the counter he put on top of his deck with Telling Time.

Now, let’s assume that cutting his deck was a legitimate mistake and not shady behavior; somebody fiddles with their deck with a spell (such as with Mystical Teachings, etc), you will often cut it afterwards. I know both of the guys involved in this situation, so I tend to believe the cut was done by mistake.

What do you do when you make a mistake like that?

Me, I concede and move on to the next game. In my mind, it’s the only right thing to do in the face of a pretty screwed up game state that’s totally your fault, especially since you’ve screwed things up while being in a pretty darn good position. Why even allow the perception to be made that you did something shady in order to ensure your likely win?

Even the context of the situation urges this course of action. It’s fairly early in the day (I think this was second round, and both guys were 1-0). Plus, you know your opponent – not real well, but he in fact had you over to his home a few days earlier to play test. But even if he were a total stranger, I think it’s obvious that you concede the game for screwing things up beyond repair, even if the rules and judges don’t force you to.

The fact that the guy didn’t concede, went ahead with the game, cast Persecute the very next turn and broke Dragonstorm’s back certainly makes it difficult to sell the “mistake versus shady behavior” explanation for cutting his deck.

I’m curious what the Magic community thinks; what would you do if you were in the position of Solar Flare and you honestly screwed up with the cut but not with malicious intent? Would the fact that you know your opponent (who invited you over for play testing recently) have any bearing on your decision? Would your decision change if you were playing for the cut to Top 8 as opposed to playing round two at 1-0 records?

As I type this, a former pro-player buddy of mine messages me on AIM, and I pose the question to him. “I don’t think it’s your moral duty to overturn the head judge,” he replies. “I don’t think it’s fair to hold anyone to anyone else’s opinion of ‘the right thing’ other than the agreed upon written rules. The head judge made his ruling; you can concede if you like but I don’t think it’s wise or morally just.”

I obviously disagree, but I’d like to know the pulse of the Magic community on a situation like this. Please take a moment and sound off in the forums!

One thing I think you can at the very least take away from this incident – whenever you cast Telling Time, if two of the cards you look at are ones you want, make sure the one you most want or need is the one you put in your hand, and the second most important one you put on top of your deck in case your opponent inadvertently cuts you afterwards and doesn’t concede for doing so.

Okay, onward…

Standard: The most diverse metagame ever!
Me: My ass…

So this was the version of Project Z that I took to Regionals:

Project Z

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 06-17-2007

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (22)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

The story on the last minute changes:

With no Wall of Roots, I was a little worried about running only 21 lands even with 4 Birds of Paradise. I ended up cutting a Watchwolf for a Horizon Canopy. I never drew the Canopy all day but I was never land screwed so I was grateful.

I changed from three each of Summoner’s Pact and Chord of Calling to two Pacts and four Chords. I love the Pact, but this was one change in favor of strengthening the matchup against control that I was glad I made. Being able to Chord out the Riftsweeper (for their suspended Chronic) or Jotun Grunts (in response to being Persecuted) was very helpful.

I added three Last Gasps in the maindeck. I almost never needed these; the creatures I tended to see on the opposite side of the board were Angels of Despair, Akroma, or Aeon Chroniclers, so giving them -3/-3 was either impossible or did nothing. On the other hand, my Silklash Spider was frickin’ golden, and I killed two Akromas and several Angels of Despair with it over the course of the day.

Extirpates were helpful in the obvious ways, but on two occasions they helped ensure victory due to decking, by stripping my opponent of cards from his deck.

I was pretty happy with the deck going into Regionals; I felt it had a decent shot against Dragonstorm, Dredge, Gruul, and any random aggro decks, and seemed to have a fighting shot against Rack decks and Solar Flare, though Solar Flare and Dralnu were both pretty tough matchups. Thinking about my deck choices for big Constructed events over the years at a macro level, I realize that this is what typically happens:

I kick around deck ideas that stomp control strategies in the dirt (I’m a Green mage at heart, that’s always my first instinct).
I start worrying about combo and aggro, and start making new decks or tuning the original deck to better handle those.
The deck I end up taking ends up being decent against aggro and combo, but tends to struggle against control.
The day of the tournament I face off against a bunch of control decks.

The one time I deviate from this apparent self-defeating internal bias was for States in 2005, where I take the then unknown Dredge archetype to a Top 8 finish. I was justifiably worried about its match up with Aggro, but knowing it owned Control I went with it, stomped on Control all day, struggled against the few Aggro decks, and rolled to the top tables.

Hmm, perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned?

Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve.

Here’s a recap of Mid-Atlantic Regionals for me:

Round 1 versus Lawrence Creech (a former pro player and local Richmonder) with Solar Pox; I lose 0-2
Round 2 versus John with Solar Flare; I lose 0-2
Round 3 versus Patrick with Mono Black Zombies; I win 2-0
Round 4 versus Chris, who forgot to check “drop” on his slip last round and comes by to tell me “gg” and signs my slip; I win 2-0 in 5 minutes flat, whoo-hoo!
Round 5 versus Paul with Solar Flare, I win 2-0
Round 6 versus Joshua with Solar Pox, we draw 1-1

For those who’re counting, of the five actual matches I played, four of them were against Solar Flare or Solar Pox – and me with no sunscreen!

Here are a few quick hits from the six rounds…

* I gain infinite life four times on the day, once with a Withered Wretch on the board! Gaining infinite life tends to win the game, it seems.

* I force a Solar Flare deck to Wrath twice in one turn due to Saffi saving my Jotun Grunts from the first Wrath, since he’s at less than four life. I end up killing him with Orzhova, the Church of Deals anyway.

* I nearly win 2-0 against my Round 6 opponent, staring down Akroma and Angel of Despair with a Jotun Grunts backed by Worship. The cumulative upkeep keeps ticking away, I Church him down to 3 with enough cards in graveyards to feed Grunts two more times and then Church him one more time after I let the Grunts go, but he draws a Dread Return for Court Hussar to dig and finally gets another Angel for my Worship. It was a nail-biter of a game! I didn’t have enough mana to play a creature and still activate Church, so there was some real tension there. It’s entirely possible I screwed something up here and tossed victory away, so that’s on me not the deck I think.

* I end up decking Mono Black Zombies in game 2 after getting Worship and Paladin en-Vec on the board. He manages to kill every other creature of mine with Sudden Death and recurring Festering Goblin with Lord of the Undead. He sacrifices the Festering Goblin to Gutless Ghoul of all things, but this ensures I can’t beat him with Paladin beatdown. He gets a Helldozer on line so eventually I have no permanents in play except the Paladin and Worship. Thankfully, before I drew Paladin I Extirpated his Sudden Death to help keep a few other creatures I had in play alive with my Worship, so I have to deck him to win.

Overall, I really like the deck.

So I’m at a crossroads with Project Z. My gut-reaction is to abandon the damn thing and start working on decklists that start with:

4 Tin-Street Hooligans
4 Magus of the Moon
2-3 Detritivore

With a gut like mine, you ignore its reaction at your peril. Add a few more “can’t be countered” spells for additional hateful spice. I want to mow down Signets and non-basics like it’s my full-time job. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers!

I do still think my deck still has plenty of potential. Obviously, Solar Flare is a huge player in the metagame, so if I can figure out a way to shore up that matchup perhaps Project Z can compete.

I didn’t bring in Slaughter Pacts all day; when you’re facing Angels of Despair and Akroma, Slaughter Pact isn’t going to help you. Slaughter Pacts claimed a spot to try and help fight aggro decks, so I had a flash of inspiration – rather than Pacts, have Epochrasites instead. Sure, they only chump on turn 2, but when they come back they’re gigantic, and you’ve got plenty of other creatures to play while you wait. There’s also the sexy synergy with Saffi Eriksdotter. And speaking of Saffi, Epochrasite would give you additional resistance to all the Wraths/Damnations running around (and also be resistant to Persecute). I think I may give Epochrasites a whirl before shelving the deck.

As expected, there were more than a few people at the tournament who asked me why I wasn’t running the Dredge deck. My joking reply was “because the new Dredge deck is good,” and that was actually partly true. The new Dredge deck bears almost no resemblance to the “slow dredge” strategy I’m partial to, and it was flat out difficult for me to buy into playing a nasty combo deck, especially one that is so easily hated by anyone who has an interest in doing so. I ended up talking my buddy Jay into playing it since he’d been in charge of running it in our gauntlet and had logged a ton of games with it. When the cards he’d ordered to build his pet deck failed to show up by Friday, he was thinking about not playing at Regionals at all, but I urged him to go ahead and run the broken combo deck. Here’s the version he played:

Combo Dredge

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 06-17-2007

Standard

Creatures (31)

Lands (18)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

I actually kinda liked this build, based off Sean McKeown proposed version with a few slight tweaks. Pulling back off the speed version and running the Green enablers gave the deck more resiliency and flexibility to fight some of the hate out there. We actually really liked “the man plan,” giving the deck the ability to smash through the air if your opponent screwed up his deck’s game by overloading on graveyard hate. Trygon Predator does a nice job of eating annoying Leylines and Crypts. The Voidslimes were a last minute addition, but Jay said they came in quite handy each time he drew them.

The Tarmogoyfs, on the other hand, sounded great in theory, but Jay said they never really did anything for him. Here’s what he wrote me about playing the deck:

I actually wouldn’t have changed anything, except for maybe the Tarmogoyf slot in the sideboard. I actually think that dredge is the best deck in Standard right now. Over five rounds I only lost one game 1, and that was a mulligan to 4 against a control deck. I felt like I was armed with an Uzi while everyone else had pocketknives. I’d probably drop the Tarmogoyf slot for three Defense Grid, or maybe some Ghost Quarters. I’d want to put in the fourth Grid as well if I played those, but I’m not sure where exactly I’d put it. I’m not sure how I would have fared with the speed version, but I know that I wouldn’t have beaten Ben (who is definitely a better player than me) in the second round without Voidslime so it would have most likely been an 0-2 drop.

My first loss came to Angelfire. I actually should have boarded back into the combo in game 3, but we can chalk that up to inexperience with this version of the deck. My second loss came to U/W/r Trisket Tron. Mulliganing to four in game 1 was not so good. Game 2 gave me a mediocre hand, but it seemed strong against his deck. That game ended with my opponent casting Wrath of God and using Mirari to kill the zombies. That’s right, Mirari.

Anyway, before round 6 had concluded, I was informed that everyone else in my caravan home had dropped from the tournament and was waiting on me, so when my opponent and I were going to draw I instead went ahead and gave him the game. Taking the draw and then dropping seemed like a rather jerkish thing to do, especially since I’ve got zero concern for my rating.

On the way out we overheard a guy talking on his cell phone. “Yeah man,” he said. “There were a bunch of Stormtroopers ready to storm the wedding!”

I certainly hope the guy was kidding. If not, I imagine the father of the bride would end up in jail that night. I mean, I’m a gamer geek to the core, but there’s a line you don’t cross between your fantasy fun and real life, and weddings are far over that line.

Halfway back to the parking lot, a squirrel strolled out and paused about 20 feet in front of us. “Where’s the reception for the Stormtrooper wedding?” the rodent asked. Well, actually, the squirrel didn’t say anything; it just looked at us expectantly before continuing his leisurely walk. I’ve never seen a squirrel as laid back about being so close to humans before. We were on a college campus; maybe it was somebody’s pet?

Jay was driving his wife’s SUV so all four of us large men fit in quite comfortably. He pulled out, drove around for a moment and looked around confused. “How do we get out of here?”

David in the shotgun seat pointed to a sign hanging off the ceiling of the deck. “Good god, you can understand a sixteen-minute Magic turn playing Dredge combo, but you can’t read an exit sign?”

About an hour on the road and we were getting hungry. Griff pointed out there was an exit coming up that had a lot of places to eat. There was a mall there that never ends. “Seriously, you have no idea how far it goes,” Griff declared. And he was right; it was like an endless strip mall that kept going for as far as the eye could see. There was almost too many choices and we couldn’t commit; we drove past Friday’s and Jay was going to turn around and go there, but then we past O’Charley’s and Jay was going to turn around and go there.

Then we saw it: Smokey Bones.

Seriously, the place was called Smokey Bones.

Jay objected, worried that the name was some subtle homoerotic reference, but there was no need to worry, it was actually just a really dumb name for a decent Bar-B-Q joint. Unfortunately, the stage was set for quite a bit of snarky innuendo.

David was starving, and ordered what ended up being an obscene amount of ribs, chicken, and sausage. There were token side orders too, but that was just a distraction. David made a heroic effort but was defeated by the laws of physics, mass, and volume. He called the waitress over, an incredibly cool woman named Megan. She was cute and friendly, with a tongue piercing that added a sexy edge. I imagine she got good tips.

“This is just entirely too much meat for me to handle.”

“I’m very disappointed in you. I thought you were more man than that.”

“Do you have a box that can take all this?” he asked, stabbing the gigantic 10 inch kielbasa sausage with a fork and holding it up.

“I sure do,” she laughed, twitching off. Megan was very cool, playing right into our juvenile snarkiness during the course of the meal.

After putting the sausage in the box, David didn’t look so good. He might have OD’d on meat. “I think I’m just going to leave this here.”

“I’ll take,” I chimed in. “I can’t stand to see that much meat go to waste.”

David had recently been in an accident where he had some cracked ribs, and was taking Morphine for the pain. Before the dinner started he took a pill, and about twenty minutes later he took another one (forgetting he had taken one already). Hmm, maybe that accounted for why he was ill?

Taking a double dose of Morphine makes you quite amusing to the sober guys around you (a large Sam Adams didn’t put me anywhere close to the headspace he was inhabiting). Here are a few gems:

“I can feel my hair growing.”

“Did I just say something?”

“What a day of Magic, Morphine, and Meat.”

“Do you think I can Super Glue it back in?”

This last statement was on the ride home when his dental bridge fell out of his mouth. We convinced him to keep Super Glue away from his mouth, and to go see a dentist Monday morning. The Morphine will help get him there.

‘Til next week, may you always have an Tin-Street Hooligan for their turn 2 Signet…

Bennie