For Grand Prix: Manila, I tried to brew a number of decks. In the end, nothing impressed me as much as I wanted. Thursday night, I found myself on the roof of our hotel in Manila watching some matches. I spent some time advising a Jund player, and in those games I felt like I had a pretty clear grasp on what I wanted to do as the Jund player. This reminded me of a similar experience watching matches in Brussels before the Grand Prix. I felt like maybe my early frustration with Jund, and my decision never to play it again after Worlds, was outdated. Maybe, just from playing against the deck enough at this point, I knew it better.
It seemed funny to me that right after I wrote that Standard was open and there was a lot of room to innovate, I found myself playing Jund, but it felt like the time might be right. There were enough new things to focus on that I felt a lot of people would be less worried about Jund, and might play decks that don’t have a good plan against it. Playing the best deck when people are excited about some new brews can often lead to playing a deck that is both the most powerful deck in the format and a deck that people are insufficiently prepared for at the same time – a powerful combination. I thought this might be like playing Faeries after Volcanic Fallout but before Zealous Persecution, when it was still the best deck but when people started to pay less attention to it because they thought the problem was gone. I hoped other decks would be unprepared for Jund, thinking that Next Level Bant would keep the numbers down. I had Cunning Sparkmage in the sideboard, and I felt that he gave me a pretty good chance of beating Next Level Bant (and crushing Mythic).
Ultimately, I might have been right about Jund’s potential position in the metagame, but I should have trusted myself when I decided I never wanted to play Jund again over six months ago. I just hate playing it. I played the mirror three times in my first four rounds, and I lost two of those. One of them was my fault. In the other, I’m pretty sure nothing was to be done. We both had good draws every game, and the person who was on the play was always too far ahead.
The one that was my fault is one I think I’ll need to remember.
A few weeks ago, I met an engineer who had worked on studying why structural failures occurred on something of a meta level; he wasn’t too interested in what part of the construction wasn’t strong enough, he was interested in what human element allowed things to be constructed in that way. Essentially, he believed that people always knew better, and there was generally some kind of miscommunication or some kind of shortcut being taken, maybe some money being saved, that lead to creating buildings that should have been known not to be strong enough. I guess we know enough about construction that we should always be able to make bridges that don’t collapse, for example. It struck me as an interesting level to take such analysis.
Similarly, I think Magic players would do well to look not only at what their mistake was, but why they made that mistake. Fatigue is obviously a major factor that people have discussed a lot. It would be easy for me to say that’s what happened to me here. I hadn’t slept for 8 continuous hours in a month, and the circles under my eyes were roughly as big as my eyes themselves. I’d slept before the tournament, and felt more or less functional, but I was at the end of a month of travel, and it always catches up to me eventually. I’m looking forward to taking a month and half off from pro level events.
There’s almost always more to find if you keep looking, and I’m not satisfied with saying this mistake was merely fatigue. My approach was off on a more fundamental level.
I think there is a point, often when you’re noticeably ahead of your opponent, when what you need to be asking yourself switches from things like, “how can I win this game?” or “what’s the highest EV play here?” to “How can I lose this game?”
Wow. I’ve just triggered something of a revelation in myself with that second question, so I’m going to go into a slight digression (I feel like I’m approaching my main point somewhat indirectly… don’t worry, we’ll get there).
As some of you may know, I play a lot of games, not just Magic. I’m an avid boardgamer. In general, I approach a lot of games on a very tactical level. I often try to focus more on just taking the most powerful action, rather than following a larger strategy. Let me explain more specifically in terms of Magic, as that might be the easiest way for most readers to relate: When drafting, there are different approaches that can be used. One fundamental divergence is to either take the best card in each pack and try to follow a draft or to take the best card for a deck you’re trying to force. My approach to games in general is often more like taking the best card out of every pack rather than forcing a strategy. I focus much more on “what’s the best play?” in the moment and without much of an eye to the future and much less on “how can I win this game?”
I often don’t have enough information to answer the second question. In general, as any game gets closer to its conclusion, it becomes increasingly correct to switch gears and focus on an end game plan. In Magic, my losses often come from failing to switch gears. I get caught up in grinding out an advantage and don’t close a game when I need to, or don’t look to stop my opponent’s chance to steal a game. I do best when I can just keep grinding until my opponent’s dead.
In Sendai, I was in extra turns playing Next Level Bant against Super Friends, and I was a long way from killing my opponent. I had to shift gears and move all in on getting as much damage through as possible – I had to prioritize animating my man lands over things like kicking my Sphinx of Lost Truths. I barely won that game on my last turn, and it was apparent to me both that I would not have played the game that way if I didn’t know that I needed to win then, and that that might have been the best way to play it anyway. I don’t attack enough.
The first day of U.S. Nationals the year that I took second place has generally felt like one of the days in my career when I was playing my best Magic. I often give myself something to focus on throughout a day in my games to keep my head in the game, and to remind myself exactly what my deck is trying to do. The times this has worked best for me are in this tournament, where I felt that the goal of my Elf deck was to set up a lethal Profane Command, and I needed to always ask myself what kind of clock my opponent was on – how many turns until I could set up a situation where they were dead. In Grand Prix Singapore playing Mono Blue Faeries in Extended, where the mantra was to play around everything, the trick was just focus on not letting the opponent make a winning play ever. Both of these are times when I’ve succeeded by reminding myself to do things that are different from what I usually do, which is to just make conservative value plays.
I feel like all of this is just a way of explaining how I’m not really that good at this.
Anyway, the situation that came up here was as follows:
My opponent and I are both a 7 life, we both have one card in hand, we’re both playing Jund. It’s my turn. Two turns ago he had no hand. He drew a card, and passed, then I drew a card, played a creature, and passed without attacking, then he drew a card and played a Putrid Leech and passed, so the card he’s holding is probably the card he drew 2 turns ago. I have the card I just drew for my turn, which is Blightning.
In play he has:
2 tapped lands
1 untapped Raging Ravine with no counters
1 untapped Raging Ravine with 2 counters and Trace of Abundance
2 other untapped lands that weren’t Savage Lands, but might as well have been – assume colored mana wasn’t a concern.
1 Putrid Leech
1 Goblin token
In play I have:
1 Raging Ravine with no counters
8 other lands with all the colored mana I could need
1 Putrid Leech
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Sprouting Thrinax
His graveyard contains 2 Inquisition of Kozilek, 1 Chain Reaction, Siege-Gang Commander, not much removal. I’ve used most of my Bloodbraid Elves.
I made one of the few plays that could lose me this game.
First, I looked at attacking with everything. No good. He could block to stay alive and kill me on the counter-attack on board. It would be possible for him to screw up and put himself dead to the Blightning, but I didn’t want to count on it.
I still wanted to find a way to kill him that turn. I looked at attacking with 3 creatures. Raging Ravine, Putrid Leech, and Sprouting Thrinax were all very good at attacking into his board. They would trade with anything at worst, except for Thrinax, which I would be happy to have die at this point. That would get me ahead while leaving a creature back to block, and gave plenty of options for him to take more damage than he should and lose to my Blightning.
I was in.
He didn’t animate his Raging Ravine. He blocked my Leech with his Leech and my Raging Ravine with his Goblin Token, letting the Bloodbraid Elf through. Perfect. I pumped my Leech so that he’d have to pump his and he’d be dead to Blightning. I went to 5. He let his Leech die without pumping and went to 4. I was ahead enough on board that I should be winning next turn, so I didn’t have any reason to save my Blightning and used it to empty his hand. He Terminated my Bloodbraid Elf in response and killed me.
My plays were terrible, and if I had done anything differently, I wouldn’t have lost here.
First, he’s likely to play around the burn spell anyway, and I’m ahead, so I don’t need to try to be tricky. I should just Blightning him first so I can make my attack with perfect information.
Second, if I’m attacking with 3 things, Sprouting Thrinax is the creature I should leave back so that he can’t get rid of my blocker with a removal spell.
Third, when he didn’t block with his Ranging Ravine, I should really realize something is probably going on, and at that point if I just don’t pump the Leech, he can’t actually kill me on his turn.
In this case, I didn’t make the correct play for any value of correct play. It’s not like I was playing around one thing and got caught be something else, but this is still related to what I was discussing above. Even though I knew this was the turn when I was trying to kill my opponent, I hadn’t properly shifted into an “end game mentality.” I was only looking at how I could win, and only playing the board. I never gave serious consideration to how he could win, or what was in his hand (mostly, I just dismissed the one card he drew as likely sandbagging a land or the third Inquisition of Kozilek, but there was no reason not to assume that it could have been an instant speed removal spell, as he wouldn’t have had any reason to use it before that point).
All of this roughly translates for me as “I shouldn’t play Jund,” but that’s the worst possible way to look at this on several levels. Bad play is to be addressed regardless of what deck I’m playing. I could make a similar mistake in any matchup, and if I can find weaknesses in my play with a deck, I should really try to learn to fix it rather than limiting my options on which decks I can play.
Finally, I wouldn’t want to leave you without my traditional thoughts on the metagame at this point.
The Top 4 in Manila were all Misty Rainforest decks. The rest of the Top 16 had a lot of Jund and some Next Level Bant. Before Manila, looking at Magic Online events, we were seeing a lot of tournaments with Bant finishing 1-4 and Jund finishing 5-8. Both of these decks are powerful enough to beat most of the field, but then the Top 8 comes down to Bant’s very good matchup against Jund.
The StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Seattle had 6 different decks in the Top 8, with Jund winning. A lot of people might ignore the first placed Jund deck – sure, Jund won another tournament, whatever – particularly given the attention-grabbing Turboland second place finish from LSV, but it’s worth noticing that that Jund deck that won is not your traditional Jund deck. That’s 4 Vengevines, 0 Blightnings, and 8 two-drop creatures with zero Putrid Leeches among them. It’s also playing 2 Eldrazi Monument. Many have noted (although I’m not sure how many of them have put it in writing) that Eldrazi Monument is one of the best cards against Next Level Bant, since it allows you to ignore their cantripping creatures and kill their planeswalkers, and it lets you hold off their Vengevines easily, even if they’re powered by Elspeth.
The other deck that’s going to catch a lot of attention from that Top 8 is Brilliant Ultimatum, taking 2 slots. The deck is essentially hoping to cast Emrakul for half the mana at instant speed, although it essentially gives up the uncounterable benefit of Emrakul. Jace allows Brilliant Ultimatum to do this a little more consistently, and See Beyond helps deal with the problem of drawing Emrakul. The deck also gets to take advantage of Esper Charm, an excellent card that doesn’t see a lot of play these days. I’m not exactly sure where this deck fits in the metagame. I would guess that it successfully goes over the top of Next Level Bant’s card advantage and board control based game plan, which is probably one of the major draws for playing the deck. I assume casting planeswalkers and seven-mana spells hasn’t really gotten any better against Jund as a game plan goes, and that Wall of Omens are not enough to give this deck a good matchup there.
Ultimately, I think Mythic is extremely well positioned right now. Next Level Bant has everyone trying to go big, and Mythic is excellent at coming out fast enough to punish that, and Negate backing Mythic’s early accelerated threat is usually the end for any deck with that kind of plan. Meanwhile, Mythic is still doing something powerful enough itself to similarly go over the top of Next Level Bant in terms of power level. Basically, I love how Mythic is positioned against Ultimatum, Turboland, and Next Level Bant. The problems are that it’s easy to build Mythic in such a way that it’s very soft to Mono Red, and the post-sideboard Jund matchup is a serious problem, but at least Mythic can usually take game 1. If someone can find a solid plan to beat Jund in games 2 and 3 with Mythic in the coming weeks, I think they’ll be positioned extremely well.
Thanks for reading…
Sam