While I had to spend the last week lying in bed sick, at least there was that wonderful “little” (by some strange definition of little) Grand Prix in New
Jersey to divert me from my belly. And behold, it was pretty sweet to watch and left me with quite a lot of thoughts.
However, I’ve written a number of results analysis articles since Khans of Tarkir has appeared, and I don’t really feel like adding another “here are the
results, here’s what they mean” structured article yet again. I’m doing this stint for my enjoyment just as much as yours, after all, so I wanted do things
a little differently today. Let’s see how you like it, shall we?
About That Whole Best Deck Thing…
The one thing that had me worried before the event was the huge amount of hype a variety of very good players were putting out concerning U/R Delver. A
flood of articles even from people that usually are at the forefront of innovation like Caleb Durward told everybody who wanted to hear it that U/R Delver
was clearly the best deck in the format and that a tuned version of that deck was the obvious choice as to what to play in New Jersey.
Why did this have me worried? The echo-chamber effect we’ve seen before. If enough people believed these articles and showed up with U/R Delver, the whole
“best deck” thing could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy with such a high percentage of people playing it that it would do reasonably well just of off
that and thereby allow the idea of it being too good not to play being perpetuated. If the past is anything to go by, that’s basically the one way we could
end up with a stale metagame without ever coming even close to discovering how good Treasure Cruise actually is once we’ve figured out other shells to
support it perfectly.
From my own testing and the bit of experience I’ve had with the deck, I was utterly convinced of two things. First, U/R Delver was a very good deck.
Second, it wasn’t actually even close to detaching itself from the rest of the format power-level wise. The deck is a powerful, highly efficient beatdown
machine, no question, but just among the already established decks out there I could see a vast number that should eat it for breakfast, not to mention
what would happen if people actually put their mind to beating it. U/R Delver just has a number of fundamental flaws that make it impossible for the deck
to ever take over Legacy to the point many players seemed to believe it already had.
Luckily, things played out quite differently. Many of the best professional players currently active in the game, as well as what seems to have been quite
a few other players, brought the flavor of the month deck to the GP judging by it taking up a fifth of the day 2 spots. Yet in spite of this skill and number
advantage, there is one measly copy in the top 16 of GP New Jersey. A single one.
Now, if this was a breakout deck, I’d say, “well, sounds like some people got unlucky.” When the most played deck with a large majority of the best pilots
present at the event performs this way, it means one simple thing: the deck simply isn’t that good.
About that Treasure Cruise Thing…
As for Cruise itself, well, there are ten copies in the Top 8, two decks relying on it in a dedicated way, and two decks with a miser’s copy each. Seats 9
to 16 contain another eleven copies from three dedicated decks. That doesn’t exactly sound like a dominating performance for a card that received that much
hype coming in and likely was in more than a third of the decks at the event, does it? In fact, assuming there was about a third of decks aiming to go on a
Cruise starting out the day (which it looks like from the stats link), getting five
people into the top 16 is exactly the number of people you’d expect to find sporting Cruise-decks among these sixteen players if we expect the deck to
simply hold its own (on average) against the format. A solid performance? Sure. A dominant one? No way, however much you argue.
So Treasure Cruise isn’t too good and the format is clearly safe now? Yee-haw!
… Oh wait. There’s that other deck. You know, the one that won the event (Congratulations Brian, excellent work!):
Creatures (10)
Lands (18)
Spells (32)
There’s also this one:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (17)
Spells (33)
Why are Brian’s and Eli’s lists so important? Because they show us that evolution is actually taking place and succeeding. The expected Cruise deck, U/R
Delver, performed pretty abysmally compared to how many players brought the deck. These two more unique lists, on the other hand, clearly did much better
than anybody would expect straight up – I mean, I doubt there was another copy of Eli’s deck around unless he brought a couple of testing partners, and
Brian’s list is clearly not your run of the mill Stoneblade deck as we know it either. Delve isn’t done shaking out yet, that much is for sure.
About that Angel Thing…
If there’s any deck that delivered an impressive performance numbers-wise this weekend, it’s one without Treasure Cruise, actually. With only six percent
of the Day 2 field sporting Terminus and Entreat the Angels, three of those decks ended up in the top 16 (or bit less than 20%!). That’s quite the gain,
wouldn’t you say?
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (21)
Spells (33)
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (31)
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (21)
Spells (33)
Some of that clearly isn’t down just to the deck’s power level. If you saw Philipp’s smooth way to handle the deck during his match, the pure beauty and
fluidity of his mechanics should have made it abundantly clear that he’s a master with Miracles. I suspect Tom Ross might have been the only opponent he
faced during the event that knew their deck even close to as well as Philipp did his.
By the way, if you haven’t watched his games yet and ever plan to pick up Miracles, do yourself a favor and do so now. The time-efficient precise way he
played is exactly how you need to work with Miracles if you want to avoid that endless series of draws that is the nightmare that keeps so many people – me
included – from picking the deck up for larger events.
About that Innovation Thing…
In spite of sporting Treasure Cruise, Stoneforge Mystic, Delvers, Miracles, Elves, and a multitude of known decks, the New Jersey top 16 remains one of the
more innovative ones in recent memory. We have a number of what I enjoy calling outlier decks – decks that are good but usually too rarely played to place
– such as Infect (it really seems like Tom is the only one that can get the deck to perform this well) and MUD, but we even have Lam Phan bringing us a
deck I wouldn’t even have assumed to be playable in the format. In fact, his Landstill deck feels a lot like someone decided to port Vintage Landstill to
Legacy.
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (24)
Spells (32)
When it is played in Vintage, Landstill is usually U/R and all about mana denial with Strip Mine effects and Null Rod. In Legacy, that strategy has never
worked realistically for as long as I can remember simply because of Tarmogoyf. You just couldn’t play a control deck that couldn’t deal with a 3/4 for 1G
on turn 2. Now that Young Pyromancer and friends seem to have pushed out the best Lhurgoyf in the game, something like Lightning Bolt plus Sudden Shock has
suddenly become not just a decent removal suite, but it’s one that is kind of on the next level.
Nice Daze protection for that turn 2 Young Pyromancer you have there, bub.
Once you have the tools to keep the threats contained, punishing people’s mana is actually easier than it has been for a while simply because so many decks
are cutting down on lands to make room for more cantrips to fuel Cruise. With many others also raising the early removal count – you know, because of all
those Monastery Swiftspears floating around – you generally should be able to profit either from the dearth of lands or the overload of useless removal
spells in your opponent’s hand. I like it.
About Those Combo Decks…
I obviously can’t help but smile seeing Storm as the combo-representative in the top 8. Huge props to Royce Walter for piloting the deck well enough
through two gruelingly long days of Magic to do that well. I don’t think there’s a deck that loves the downward trend on Spell Pierces and Hymn to Tourachs
as much as Storm, but it’s still just so easy to screw up when playing that deck that even what should be a favorable field is hard to profit from.
Another shout out for a totally different reason to Jonathan Anghelescu for making top 16. While I still despise his deck of choice (hey, I just can’t stop
hating that stupid Show and Tell card), having one of our local grinders take the long trip from Berlin over the pond for the GP and have him do that well
warms my heart. Huge congrats, man!
Outside of personal reactions, it’s interesting to see that the combo decks in the top 16 are all different. Infect, Omni-Tell, Sneak and Show, Storm, and
Elves all made it that far so it seems that playing combo in general was a solid idea this weekend.
About that Winning Deck…
Even though we have a tendency to overvalue first place finishes, I think this time we’re correct to pay a lot of attention. I could write a complete
article about BBD’s deck and why I think it is at least a step or two above everything we’ve done with the delve cards so far – and might for next week
depending on what remains unsaid by others this week – but suffice to say I’m incredibly impressed with what Brian has wrought.
He’s taken the core engine that made U/R Delver so powerful – the Brainstorm–Ponder–Gitaxian Probe–Treasure Cruise–Young Pyromancer set up – correctly
identified these five cards were at the heart of the deck’s power level – a feat he has to share with Eli Kassis – and has managed to encapsulate this
power while porting into a different, much more flexible and resilient shell.
Personally, I consider his list the default Treasure Cruise list to work from moving forward (and the default fair deck I would consider playing), and I
feel this is the first inkling of where Treasure Cruise might really start causing problems in the long run.
About that Variety Thing…
Given that I was worried hype could lead to a GP New Jersey that is dominated undeservedly by a single strategy, seeing a top 8 that includes seven
distinct archetypes and a top 16 that has another five new archetypes even if we throw all the very different looking decks with Delver of Secrets in them
into the same pot, claiming that Legacy is a stale, one deck format is preposterous, especially given that these archetypes span the whole spectrum from
aggro (U/R Delver) through prison, combo, and aggro control to hard control.
I’m sure we’ll get complaints in that department anyway – there are fourteen decks with maindeck islands (not the card but the card type) in
there, after all. We can discuss if that is a problem – as I’ve pointed out in the past, I personally consider color balance much less relevant than
strategic variety – but anybody making the argument that this top 16 isn’t extremely multifaceted is clearly being disingenuous.
About that Fallout Thing…
So what does this GP mean for the metagame in the short term? Well, first and foremost, expect a lot of Young Pyromancers and Stoneforge Mystics. BBD won
the event with an incredibly sweet and powerful looking concoction, and I suspect that list will be copied a lot in the weeks to come (rightfully so). I
don’t have an easy solution for that deck – it’s much more well-rounded than U/R Delver was when Bob Huang put it on the map – other than that going by the Live VS Video that he and CVM did that it has an atrocious Jund matchup and its maindeck matchup
against combo decks just has to be terrible given its disruption base (postboard, though… well, I said the deck was a lot more well-rounded, didn’t I?).
We also have clear proof that innovating still pays right now and that the Khans of Tarkir upheaval is far from over. Eli’s Grixis deck is absolutely
awesome and opens up another window towards how to get the Cruise engine to do more than just fuel all-out aggression while Lam Phan’s performance with
Landstill hints at hidden depths on the fringes we need to start diving into with the new shape the format seems to be taking.
Most importantly though, this top 16 is an incredible testament to skill and experience mattering in Legacy. Of those sixteen names, there are only three I
don’t instantly recognize, and most of those I do I know as either excellent players, masters with their own deck, or both. If that isn’t a testament to
skill over variance, I don’t know what would be.
I love it when Magic rewards innovation, when matches are decided on decision making and skill and when I simply don’t know what my opponent will be up to
when I sit down at the table. I also love awesomely broken things happening (broken things that need a lot of decisions to come about) and stupid broken
things being rare (herp-derp cast spell, win).
Given all that, I adore how this latest Legacy GP has turned out. The “U/R Delver is best” fallacy seems finally visibly disproved, brewing has been
rewarded, and skill seems to be king. You can do all kinds of awesome things but those that are really easy to pull off are in the vast minority as far as
performance is concerned.
All that, and there still isn’t any clear indication we’ve even close to figured out the final form the Khans-delve decks should take, so there’s room for
innovation left even where most people’s attention has been focused. Sheer awesome.