Who let the pros get their hooks into Standard? Don’t they know Zoo is bad, and that control is always the best strategy in this format? I mean, what kind of craziness is it that leads to a deck that runs dudes who attack for three taking the top 8 of a format? I mean… what the hell?
I’m sure you’re fed up with talk about Honolulu by now. I mean, blah blah blah metagame this and fu fu fu control-oriented format that. Statistics here, numbers there, who really cares?
Guilty pleasure time: I do. I love combing over Pro Tour events, because the pros can often find interactions that you’d miss.
Who here spotted Tallowisp and Pillory? Shut up, I know you made the deck. Everyone else here? Yeah, you see what I mean? We had a pro suddenly glance at the format and go “hah! That works!” We’re now scrabbling to trade for Plagued Rusalkas and Shining Shoals. I mean, it’s great.
Because, and this is important, you can’t have every good idea. A deck designer, a deck constructor who can’t sit back, draw in his breath, and say “Well, I wonder what other people thought of” is a deck designer who’s hamstringing himself. Two heads are, provided they’re both focused on the task at hand and not, say, making fun of one another, better than one.
(Can anyone tell me what ‘elfpit.tga’ is? It sounds gross.)
I’ve been reading tournament coverage. For a start, I think that more casual players should pay attention to the pros. I mean, the Ruels are great guys, real showmen in all the good ways. Osyp has a bad habit of getting off-kilter when he’s losing, and in that regard, he stops being Funny Osyp and starts being Cranky Osyp. But Funny Osyp is still a blast to watch. Shuhei Nakamura could win with a ham sandwich if it had Mountains on the side, and I have been unfailingly impressed by the stories of gaming that go on at Pro Tours. Sure, there’s the occasional Mike Long-equse moment, but it’s too easy to forget that the Pros are People.
Moments Of Pro Awesomeness
When — hey, here’s a name you’ve forgotten — Gary Wise was playing Cole Swannack at Worlds, he was heard to remark, “If I win this match, I’m going to be Magic’s greatest villain.” When he went on to lose the match to Swannack 2-1, he then added “You’re gonna make one hell of a World Champion.”
This is a thirty-year old man, Mr. Gary Wise, showing utmost respect and sportsmanship to an opponent who’s thirteen. Do you know the kind of class it takes to treat someone who the law tells you is less important than you like he’s an adult? Do you know how much he’d appreciate it? Cole earned his spot there, and Gary gave him the respect that deserved — by playing hard and tight, and playing to win.
Shuhei Nakamura, fighting Gabe Walls, had to contend with an opponent’s draw that featured a turn 2 Absolute Law. Mike Flores has related this story — and indeed, did so in the coverage booth — many times before. Shuhei was playing Red Deck Wins, a deck that had literally zero means between maindeck and sideboard to deal with Absolute Law. So Nakamura said, in essence, to the judge, “That means I can’t touch his creatures, right?” When the response was affirmative, he shrugged, looked at the life totals and said, “Oh well.”
Nakamura went on to win the match, effortlessly killing America’s Best Hobbit on, hearsay says, turn 4.
These are good stories. They’re not good stories about people better than us. These are good stories about guys who know more about the game, and are playing it at a high level. They joke around, they rib on each other a bit, but they ultimately are gamers. Just like you and me. They just take their play to a different level than ours.
So tournament reports are worth reading for that reason. They’re worth hearing about because they give you some neat insights into how decks go together. Formats are defined by this kind of things — it doesn’t matter if the best deck is Wake if only five people know how to play the deck effectively. Most importantly, they contain, as far as decks go, ideas.
An Aside: Stealing From The Best
Just because you’re casual doesn’t mean you want your deck to be bad. You want to play a cool deck that has fun and wins in your own way. I build a lot of decks — and I do mean a lot of decks. Most of the time, I build them, play them once, and then scrap them. Magic Online is great for this — there’s no sleeving, unsleeving, shuffling, musing as I take notes on life total and jot things down. No, a lot of the process is automated for me in that regard. Plus, I can look at the entire Standard cardpool at once and consider what I want to do with the deck. That means, really, MTGO makes my life easier as a deck designer.
You get to play a lot of weird stuff, too, which is neat. But the Pros are able to cut through a lot of chaff — they can put together a deck that is made of synergy, because it’s really important to them. Consider, if you will, Ghost Dad.
Ghost Dad is a deck whose engine is, in fact, cheap uncommons and commons. We saw some of the same stunt during Kamigawa block. Using Tallowisp, it could tutor up Phantom Wings, which served as bounce, or a way of pushing Ninjas past those who would dare block them. The obvious use for Tallowisp is to tutor up your own stuff, to go get Serpent Skins and Indomitable Wills… but Tallowisp is quite happy to go get you some Pillories, and he’s also very willing to keep your hand nice and full despite your casting spells.
Ghost Dad‘s engine remains an uncommon — Tallowisp – and a mitt full of common enchant creatures. Well, shucks if that’s not just asking for budgetifying?
Creatures (23)
Lands (24)
Spells (13)
The total deck, at the end of it all, is rare-free; it has a minimal number of expensive cards — you might find people who want to tussle with you over the value of Thief of Hope, Tallowisp, and the Plagued Rusalka right now. By no means is this deck going to break your budget. If you can afford it, the deck only gets better; Rend Fleshes can become Sickening Shoals. Shadow Lance and Lantern Kami can become Shining Shoal. Lands can become Caves of Koilos and Godless Shrines. This deck mercifully doesn’t change much as money gets added to the equation. It’s a deck of synergy — not something that demands expensive components to work.
This deck is hard to qualify. I’d be inclined towards calling it beatdown. While it uses removal to punish an opponent, its game plan is pretty clearly to reduce an opponent’s life total to zero. However, as beatdown decks go, this one is designed to disrupt an opponent’s threats and blockers. Pillory isn’t just a removal card; it’s a decent clock on its own when coupled with other pressure on the board. This deck is good for the same reason Frenzied Goblin is good — people are relying on a single blocker to gum up the ground against aggressive decks.
Note that I did try out the Magemarks in this deck. They might be good enough, but most of the time, you just want to give your opponent’s creatures problems, you don’t care about pumping your own except as a combat trick.
Shadow Lance, it seems, is an exception to this. It’s the Little Card That Could. On a Lantern Kami who comes out the gates fast, Shadow Lance can make the Kami hit pretty hard, and it doesn’t cost a lot for the trouble. The mere threat of lurking, untapped mana, can be enough to deter any of these annoying “attacking” ideas your opponents may be getting into those silly of heads of theirs.
This is nothing, however, which you couldn’t work out on your own, I’m sure. It’s a simple engine, and you don’t need a lot of help stripping down the bits that aren’t necessary, or that you can’t afford. This is what I was able to make based on coverage details, pitching the idea of Pillory and Tallowisp, with Plagued Rusalka. I assumed Ghost Council — and further assumed I couldn’t afford him. I was right.
Really, all this deck does is exactly what I was hoping for, out of Kamigawa. It gives Thief of Hope a home. He’s a great little card and he’s been looking for a way to win at the top tables for some time. What more do you want out of your Grey Ogres than a body for card advantage and a way of padding your game plan, thanks to a combination of life gain and stifling your opponent’s lifegain? He even does his dirty work if he’s under a Pillory himself!
If Wizards print a spirit version of Carrion Feeder in the next block, I will be a very happy man. Of course, with Belfry Spirit, he might just be a shade good, making the previous buddy he had – Symbiotic Beast – a bit less impressive; but I have a hard time feeling bad about Belfry Spirit being a fine creature indeed.
When you use Belfry Spirit with Plagued Rusalka, remember, the Spirit’s haunt goes on the stack before the Rusalka’s —1/-1 ability resolves. This means, purely off the top of my head, that Belfry spirit can haunt a 2/2 that it’s blocked and, with an assist from the Rusalka, take it out and give you bats as well.
Back to my point.
Reading The Runes
So, back to our point. Why should you, Johnny Casual, care about the pros? What do they bring to you?
Three things. Three major things. Actually, if you’re Gabe Walls, sometimes the pros bring you cake. So, four things. Four things, and if you’re Tsuyoshi Fujita, budget decks. Look, I’ll come in again.
1. The Pros Test: The Pros mean that you can look up on the net, and see a whole bunch of decks. You can look at the decks they made and, with a bit of work, walk away with your own deck. Play a pro deck once in a while, tinker with it. Pull things out and put things in. It’s not the Mona freaking Lisa, after all.
Some revile this process, and call it the foul beast “netdecking.” To those people, I say “shut up.” You think you have had every good idea, ever? Did you design your own clothes, make your own computer, and indeed, prepare your own food?
The Pros make good decks. You can get good ideas from good decks. But, as casual players do, go forth and get an idea of what you really want out of your version of the deck. Tinker a bit, and make that deck yours.
2. The Pros Prove an Environment: Know how we were able to prove to the DCI that Skullclamp was broken? Because it was a four-of in all the maindecks of several Pro Tours. The Pro Tour gives the tournament scene a way to look at a format and say in all fairness “Well, okay, that’s too good.”
Many casual groups don’t have banned and restricted lists. It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to live that way. You do that, and all it takes is one querulous jerk to step over the line and whoops, suddenly there’s broken all over the floor, and you have to find someone to mop it up.
Using an established banned and restricted list gives you a fair yardstick. Yeah, there are imperfections. I don’t like fighting Jittes in casual games, and I don’t like winning on the back of them either, especially when my friends don’t run them. There are other cards that are far more innocuous, which are even more broken. When the pros bust them in half, it gives you and your friends a nice, solid empirical list. “Here’s stuff that the highest level of play can agree is broken.”
Sure, it’s fun to tinker up a Darksteel Colossus. However, I’d like to remind you that there’s someone else at the table. It’s probably not that much fun for them when you jump eight turns ahead on the mana curve. The pros are able to smell broken, and they flock to it. With that as a core, you can find their decks to be accreted around “too good,” if it’s ever available.
3. The Pros Play Better: I groan whenever I see my opponents playing instants in their main phases without a good reason to do so. The first turn Shock prompts a sigh from my inner Spike, and it’s because I look across the table and know that this opponent hasn’t realised that that Shock could have done so much more for him had he waited.
The first time I saw my opponent pass the turn with his mana untapped… the first time I watched him do that, and realised, to my amazement, that I now had no idea what he was going to do, that was a revelation for me. By giving me no information, my opponent had made my turn more treacherous. Could I attack? Would something bad happen to my creatures? Could I cast my spell next turn and be sure it resolved?
I was left paralysed with fear at that possibility. I passed the turn. And then, my opponent cycled a card, untapped, and had his turn. By delaying his option against a bad player, he’d bought himself a turn. He learned that from watching better players.
By the way, hi Mick.
There are all these little mannerisms. Pros attack, then play spells. If you play a spell before combat that doesn’t directly affect that combat, you’re left with tapped mana and a dude who’s not doing anything, at the beginning of your turn, instead of mana untapped and cards in hand against an opponent who has now every reason to be worried about what you Might Do.
So watch the pros play. It won’t infect your brain, honest.
In the end, there are a lot of Pro-hating casual gamers. Lots of casual gamers seem to think that Wizards favours the Pros over them, or that the Pros are themselves, a bunch of jerks. It’s not the case. I have only dealt with a few of them myself, but they are, in general, nice guys. Sure, there are the showboats and the buttheads — but this is true of people. Pros are not lepers, and they don’t think you are, either. They’re just people.
They can use their powers for good, or for awesome. Just like you.
Hugs and Kisses
Talen Lee
Talen at dodo dot com dot au