I’ll be honest with you. I couldn’t think up a title for this article, but I wanted something more interesting than “Grand Prix Madison Report 2006,” and this was the first thing that came to mind. I guess I must be hungry or something; nothing relating to pancakes or meatballs actually happened (to us) at this tournament. Anyway, just thought I’d clear that up.
Our Spring Break ended exactly one week before GP Madison, meaning we had about four days to test for the brand-new team format. Having learned my lesson (ahem) from Pro Tour: Honolulu, I immediately e-mailed metagame oracles Ted Knutson and Mike Flores to discuss what decks they thought would be popular at the tournament.
Except, since I’m apparently learning impaired, I just started making predictions with my teammates like normal. Making informed decisions is for lightweights. (Luckily, we turned out to be pretty close to correct anyway.)
We reasoned that most trios would contain at least one Gruul or Zoo deck, and at least one B/W deck. The third deck would most likely be an U/R deck (Izzetron, Wildfire, or Owl) or a Sakura-Tribe Elder deck (Heartbeat, some GhaziGlare spinoff, or Greater Gifts). We also figured the B/W slot would probably be the most popular of the three, and that configurations of B/W – Sakura Tribe Elder.dec – U/R might also be a popular setup.
Since we were pretty sure that the majority of B/W players would be playing either a version of Hand in Hand (that is, Olivier’s deck from the PT; we slapped this label onto any deck playing Ravenous Rats, Shrieking Grotesque, Castigate, and usually Jitte) or Ghost Dad. Hand in Hand was the top finishing B/W deck at the Pro Tour, and articles on this here website from Ben Goodman advocating the innovative Ghost Dad seemed well-received (overall) on the forums, so we expected it would be popular.
We used the first three days of testing (out of four) to try out Zoo, Gruul, Hand in Hand, Ghost Dad, Heartbeat, and Osyp’s Izzetron list. After talking with Gerry Thompson, we figured that his deck from the Pro Tour (a B/G/W GhaziGlare-style deck with Mortifies and Ink-Eyes, among other things) would also be worth investigating. We got a feel for how the matchups went, and were impressed by the fact that Ghost Dad more or less obliterated all the other aggro decks in our gauntlet.
At the end of our third day of testing, we decided we wanted all three decks to have favorable matchups against Zoo, Gruul, Ghost Dad, and, if possible, Hand in Hand. We expected the average trio to have a Zoo/Gruul seat and a Ghost Dad/Hand in Hand seat, and as long as we played decks that beat those seat configurations (without having abnormally poor matchups against the rest of the field – meaning no hate decks allowed), we could get the most possible mileage out of our pairings.
First, we settled on Troy playing Ghost Dad (which we had beating Zoo, Gruul, and Hand in Hand) with Bottled Cloister in the board to overwhelm the slow, grueling mirror match with card advantage. Next we had me running Gerry’s B/G/W Congregation at Dawn deck, which had a great matchup against all the aggro decks except Ghost Dad. Finally, we had JP running Heartbeat with a Savage Twister main to tutor up. That list had slightly favorable matchups against Zoo, Gruul, and Ghost Dad, but got pretty much destroyed by Hand in Hand’s disruption package.
Later that night, I was talking with Max McCall online, and he posed a question we hadn’t considered.
“Isn’t Enduring Ideal strictly better against aggro than Heartbeat?”
Hmm.
I played Ideal at the Pro Tour, and knew firsthand how badly it wrecked most aggro strategies. Even better, I had a list I was not only confident in, but which I had already clocked some three hundred games playing. Having tested against Hand in Hand-esque decks before the PT (the discard creatures, Mortifies, Confidants, and Castigates being the relevant part of those decks), I knew that Ideal had a really rough matchup for them… but I knew Ghost Dad wouldn’t put me on enough of a clock to stop me from getting Privileged Position into Form of the Dragon and forcing them to draw two out of their three Ancient Laws to beat me.
So I audibled to Ideal, and JP picked up Gerry’s deck. We had to do a bit of tweaking; I now wanted a maindeck Privileged Position, so I moved one of my three Boseijus to the board to make room. (That’s right – Ideal destroys aggro so thoroughly that I maindecked three Boseijus at the Pro Tour, and have still yet to lose a match to Zoo or Gruul with it.) JP replaced the Faith’s Fetters Gerry ran at the PT with Last Gasps, as the Fetters were being put to better use in my deck, and besides, the Last Gasps were much better at blowing up Tallowisps and Confidants.
Finally, JP came up with some spicy last-minute technology: run Kagemaro’s Clutch in Troy’s Ghost Dad list instead of Strands of Undeath. After all, the primary function of the four-cost Black enchantment’s inclusion in the deck was to be pitched to Sickening Shoal, and Clutch did that just as well, while offering tutorable removal for Dark Confidant and (sometimes) Tallowisp as well.
As an aside, we kept kidding JP that if I wrote about his Kagemaro’s Clutch technology in this article, I’d end up getting all the credit for it. All weekend we kept saying things like “Man, good thing Richard came up with that tech for Ghost Dad. Where would we be without Richard and his grade-A tech?” So if you’re ever paired against one James Patrick Smee in a tournament setting, make sure to tell him what a good job his friend did coming up with that Kagemaro’s Clutch idea. You’ll get an entertaining response, I promise.
On to the tournament.
Round 1 – Mike playing Owling Mine
Unlike in Team Limited, you are allowed to communicate with your teammates while games are in progress in Team Constructed. At the beginning of the tournament, the judges tell us that you are allowed to have short exchanges of a few sentences (like “Should I mulligan this?” “Yes.”), but that outright discussion will result in penalties for slow play.
The first in-game words of the tournament between my teammates and I are spoken on Mike’s second turn after he plays a Kami of the Crescent Moon.
“I lost.”
-Me
I have never seen Enduring Ideal win a game against Owling Mine. Forget about an entire match – I’ve never seen it win one game. I’ve probably played twenty or so games of Ideal versus Owl, and I never even won when they mulled to five. You can’t remove their Howling Mines, you only have Wrath for their Kamis, one Confiscate total for all their Owls (whose damage can’t be stopped by Ivory Mask), and all the extra drawing they force you to do strands all your enchantments in your hand, so you can’t fetch them out with Ideal any more. It’s literally the worst matchup I have ever seen in all of Magic. No, really – I have actually never seen a worse matchup between two viable tournament decks in my entire life.
Not surprisingly, I lose this one.
JP and Troy bash face, though, so we escape to round two unscathed.
1-0
Round 2 – Justin playing Ghost Dad
Ah, much better. A good matchup.
This is what I’m thinking as I mulligan a one-lander and then a zero-lander, then keep a positively putrescent five. I think I play maybe a Steam Vents this game, and then get my teeth kicked in.
Game 2 is much better; I get to cast lots of spells this time. Like three Telling Times and two Peer Through Depths. Enduring Ideal? Nowhere to be found. Didn’t get to cast that one. Turns out I need that it to win. Oops. Probably should have opted to draw it.
So much for my good matchup.
Luckily, Troy and JP win again. Yay team format!
2-0
Round 3 – Owen playing Hand in Hand
Owen is a very nice guy from Ohio. We draw our opening sevens, and I’m excited to see all the fixin’s of a turn 4 Ideal: Signet, Seething Song, and the Ideal itself. When Owen leads with “Godless Shrine, go,” I am silently praying that he doesn’t have a turn 2 Castigate. Haven’t I had a bad enough tournament already?
I play my Steam vents and pass, crossing my fingers. Owen plays Swamp, and taps both his lands for…Hand of Cruelty! He doesn’t draw (or perhaps doesn’t realize he desperately needs to cast) Castigate between then and my fourth turn, and by the time I’m tapping Steam Vents for Seething Song, it’s too late for him to do anything about it. Hand in Hand is hardly the most aggressive deck on the planet, so I can safely fetch Privileged Position and Confiscate on Teysa (can’t have her making flyers) before fetching out Form of the Dragon. Unable to attack, and with five life points being too tall an order for Ghost Council drains alone, I win handily from behind Form.
In the second game, I nearly mess my pants when I see my opening hand. Another turn 4 Ideal? This has never happened! Not even in testing, much less at a Grand Prix. Fate must be taking pity on me after stomping all over my face for the past two rounds. I keep the hand immediately. Once again, Owen has no turn 1 play, but this time his turn two play is…
…Castigate. For my Enduring Ideal. I knew it was too good to be true. My hopes dashed, I untap and draw another Enduring Ideal! Right off the top! Just like in the movies! I’ve never been this lucky with this deck, ever. Ever, ever, ever. Man. Wow. Damn. I mean…damn. For real, guys.
I go off on turn 4 again, and apologize profusely to Owen for being the luckiest sack on the planet. I’m really not supposed to win this matchup. Luckily, he’s cool about it… and even cooler about it when both of his teammates win and we lose the match despite my consecutive Nuts Draws.
Curse you, cruel Fate!
2-1
Round 4 – Derek playing Hand in Hand
Gulp. Hand in Hand again. I look down at my deck:
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any more turn 4 Ideals in there, do you?”
“Fresh out, boss.”
Well, then. Game 1 he doesn’t draw Castigate, and I have a Wrath for his Confidant and some other dork. He plays another Confidant, which sticks around for a couple turns while I ramp up to seven mana. Along the way, the Little 2/1 That Could reveals two Mortifies, bless his heart (by which I mean “flip him the bird”), which is extra spicy bad news because I’m holding one of my two copies of Form of the Dragon. My life total is still in the double-digits when he plays Ghost Council, but the 4/4’s presence on the board means I can no longer hardcast the Form in my hand. (He’ll just let it set my life total to five, Mortify, it, swing for four, and play-and-sacrifice a random dork to drain my remaining life point before I get another turn.)
So instead I just cast Ideal, making sure to ask him if the spell resolves. He lets it resolve without RFGing his Council first, so I get to Confiscate it without him having an opportunity to respond. He plays out a random dude or two on his turn and passes it back, probably planning on Mortifying Confiscate on my end step. I Ideal out Privileged Position, though, so he has to Mortify both that and the Confiscate in order to get his 4/4 back. He does so, burning the two Mortifies I know he has and giving me my window of opportunity.
He swings in, dropping me to… I don’t remember, to be honest, but it wasn’t “dead,” so who cares? I’m about to be at five life forever anyway. In comes Form of the Dragon, and he’s out of Mortifies. Suddenly he can’t attack anymore, I’m well out of range of getting drained out at my consistent life total of exactly five, and next turn I fetch out Zur’s Weirding to seal the victory. Bam.
I’m sure he played out some creatures or something in game 2, but the first play of Derek’s that I remember is his turn 4 Cranial Extraction. I have neither Mana Leak nor Hinder in my hand at the time, but I do have two mana and a Peer through Depths. That’s nice, ‘cause it means that after he strips half of the white Sorceries out of my deck, I am able to cast Peer to dig up a Hinder. (Bit late to the party, aren’t we? Well, better late than never. Leave that urn/flamethrower of yours in the coatroom, please.)
At this point my teammates have gone 1-1, and I am now the deciding match. Good thing I still have Enduring Ideals in my deck, except – oh wait – no I don’t. I am holding a Form of the Dragon and Ivory Mask, though.
My only option is to pray that he doesn’t have Mortify for my Form, so I Wrath away his Confidant and play the Ivory Mask. Next turn I hit seven mana, flop down the Form, and say aloud, “Don’t have Mortify.”
Derek untaps, draws, thinks a bit, and passes the turn. Ding! I untap with Form in play, Hinder in hand to protect it, and an Ivory Mask in play to protect that from Castigates and Cranials. Several five-point strafing runs later, Derek’s face has been reduced to ash and we’ve won the match.
So I guess the Hand in Hand matchup isn’t that bad… as long as I mise like some kind of terrifying, red-eyed, topdecking fiend. Wonder why I hadn’t thought of that strategy earlier…
Hey Fate, remember when I cursed you earlier and called you cruel? I was totally jk. You a’ight.
3-1
Round 5 – Matt playing Ghost Dad
Since this is, in fact, a sanctioned Magic: the Gathering tournament at which both Zac Hill and I are in attendance, there is actually a zero percent chance that we will not end up paired against one another in some capacity. (Last weekend we met in the St. Louis Pro Tour Qualifier; he knocked me out of contention and then went on to win the slot. Then earlier on, in Little Rock, I knocked him out of the Top 8 and then went on to win the slot myself. Hmm, maybe this isn’t a trend we should be complaining about after all…) Sure enough, here I am in round five paired against Zac’s team. The only thing that keeps Zac and I from battling man-to-man is that we’re in different seats – but it’s still amusing that our teams got paired up.
The fact that table talk is legal is especially fun during this match, because both teams knew each other before the tournament. My opponent (Matt) turns to Derrick Sheets, in the C seat, and says “I can’t beat him, right?” Derrick responds “Maybe he won’t draw any lands. Or mull to three both games.” Little do they know that Ghost Dad is undefeated against me at this tournament. Ahem.
In game 1, I draw my Privileged Position and one of the two Forms, so my Ideal will be suboptimal no matter what. Also my land drops stumble a bit, though I dig my way out with a few Telling Times. Unfortunately, this means I don’t have time to hardcast my Privileged Position before playing Ideal, so I’m stuck going Epic with only one Form left in my deck.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of plays at this point, but basically I try to do what I did against the Hand in Hand player earlier: draw out his enchantment removal so I can ride my one remaining Form to victory.
As per this plan, Matt trades Ancient Law for the Confiscate on his Ghost Council, and the questions I hear him asking Derrick (who knows how the Ideal deck works better than he does) make it clear he is not holding a second one. So I go for the Form, and he promptly topdecks Ancient Law Number Two. Being as I’m at five life, and he has six power on the table, that’s the end of that game.
As I play out the opening couple of turns of game 2, Troy is hit by a Cranial Extraction over in the A seat from Zac. This leads me to believe Matt doesn’t have any Extractions in his deck, though I decide that this line of reasoning may be flawed when he casts Cranial Extraction, targeting me, a few turns later, and I am once again without Mana Leak or Hinder to stop it. Sweet.
I hardcast Form, but he has removal for it and once again I am real dead. Troy and JP both win some statistically anomalous matches (I wasn’t watching very closely, but Troy may or may not have drawn all four Thief of Hopes in one game against Zac, and Derrick may or may not have visited Paris enough times to inadvertently learn French over the course of his match against JP), so we get to plow ahead anyway.
So, to recap:
2-0 against Hand in Hand.
0-2 against Ghost Dad.
That’s… well, the opposite of what’s supposed to happen, actually. I guess it evens out overall, or something.
4-1
Round 6 – Corey playing Wildfire
This is a quick one. In game 1, I mulligan to five and never play any non-Signet spells before I am dead. In game 2, I successfully Seething Song out an Ideal when he is tapped out, but he casts a million draw spells and plays two copies of Eye of Nowhere, along with a Magnivore, to take me out before I can fetch out enough enchantments to stabilize.
JP falls to Heartbeat’s transformational sideboard, and now we have to win our next two rounds in order to have a shot at Day 2.
4-2
Round 7 – Ben Seck playing Zoo
I’ve heard the name Ben Seck before, but never met him before this round. Now that I have, I can safely say that “The” Ben Seck (which is his nickname – that’s T.B.S. for short) is the friendliest Magic player I’ve ever met. We were chatting and joking throughout the match, even though I’d never met the guy before in my life – he was just that cool. I definitely hope to run into him in future events, even if he doesn’t do me the additional service of showing up with one of my best matchups.
I mean, I lost to Ghost Dad twice…but I’m definitely not losing to Zoo, right?
Game 1, I mulligan to an abysmal five and get run over by Ben’s animals. (Kangaroos, Dingoes, and so forth – Ben’s originally from Australia.) Looking good, folks, looking good.
Am I really going to lose to Zoo, of all things? Playing Enduring Ideal?
Actually, I’m not. The next two games are pretty much blowouts in my favor, and we win the match 2-1. Whew.
5-2
Round 8 – Scott playing BGW GhaziGood
Back when we were testing for the PT, we determined that GhaziGlare was my easiest matchup in the entire environment, but this GhaziGood (which is what I’ve heard people calling the deck that is essentially the same as the one that won Worlds, but running Greater Good in place of Glare of Subdual) is only slightly less awesome for me. So instead of being really, really easy, it’s just regular easy.
Game 1 he plays out Greater Good on turn three, then sits on his mana; I think he has mistaken me for the Firemane Control deck, and is afraid of running his Yosei and Kokusho into a handful of countermagic from me. I learn about the dragons in his hand, by the way, via Zur’s Weirding after Ideal resolves.
He plays Yosei, but lets my Ideal copy resolve before sacrificing it to Greater Good, thus forfeiting his opportunity to turn it into some cards before I swipe it with Confiscate. At this point he has only Kokusho in hand trying to defend against my 5/5 flying Yosei and 8/12 trampling Genju of the Realm, while being denied every relevant draw step for the rest of the game. Somehow, I manage to win from this position.
Game 2 is more of the same – he doesn’t resolve Cranial, so I pin him with Zur’s Weirding and go about killing him over the course of several turns using Genju, Confiscate, and Faith’s Fetters.
Troy pulls out an amazing comeback against the most hateful Izzetron sideboard ever (four Pyroclasms and four Threads of Disloyalty and Ryusei and Godo plus Jitte!) by using the desperation sideboard tactic of “Bring in Bottled Cloister and hope I draw enough gas to beat him.” On the last turn of the game, at which point the match is already in extra turns, Troy Shining Shoals a point of damage from his Caves of Koilos at his opponent’s dome, knocking him to exactly zero life and giving us the match.
6-2
And that’s the end of the Swiss. The top 20 teams out of 152 will advance to Day 2.
The 9th through 25th place teams all have records of 6-2 (like us), so as soon as the standings are posted, we rush over to see if our tiebreakers held out to keep us in the top 20. We read the following:
20th Joseph Kambourakis Memorial, with 18 points and 58.18% tiebreakers
21st Team Check Minus, with 18 points and 58.18% tiebreakers
So we missed Day 2, while the team that nudged us out at 20th place by besting our second tiebreakers, went on to finish in the money at 12th place overall.
Must. Be. Nice.
I suppose it’s only fitting that it was Ben Goodman team that eked us out, though. After all, we only got where we did because of his article on Ghost Dad; I really doubt we’d have had enough behind-the-wheel time with that deck to think up the “Shoal my Caves of Koilos at you” play on our own.
Moving on, the first PTQ of the season is this weekend, and once again we’ve got to scramble to figure out what we’re playing. Since the Top 4 of GP Madison is literally the only source of Sanctioned Team Constructed results on the internet, we can expect those decks to be heavily netdecked, which will greatly affect our deck choices and sideboarding strategies.
Regardless of how that works out for us, I’m looking forward to it. Team Constructed is a lot of fun, if for no other reason than that you’re always seated next to your friends (unless you’re teaming with your sworn enemies for some reason) and can talk to them during the match. Topdecks are a lot more fun when you can nudge your buddy and high-five him right when they happen, rather than having to find him after the match and walk him through it.
So to those of you about to embark on the time-honored quest for Pro Tour Qualification, I wish you good luck and good times along the way.
Until next time,
Richard Feldman
Team Check Minus
[email protected]
Bonus Section: The Deck I Played
I’m not sure Enduring Ideal will still be a viable choice for this environment (since I don’t see it beating Heartbeat, which saw plenty of Top Four action at Madison), but if there’s enough forum interest for it, I’d have no problem writing a primer on it. Plus, the critics are just raving about it:
“Enduring Ideal is the worst deck ever. Ever, ever, ever.”
–Cedric Phillips
“You’re playing a sh**ty deck. Like, I’m playing a sh**ty deck at this tournament, but your deck is really sh**ty.”
–Gerry Thompson
“At least it’s a better choice now than it was at the Pro Tour.”
–Ted Knutson
“We made sure to diversify our win conditions. One time Josh Ravitz got Extracted for Blaze and then ripped Invoke the Firemind for the kill next turn.”
–Mike Flores
I mean, really, how can you argue with that?