[Editor’s Note – This continues directly from part 1 of the series, which can be found here].
Marijn:
Wow Zac. Isolating you in Malaysia was the best thing ever. Unfortunately school is taking up a lot of time here and in the weekends I’m either working (going to school with rent to pay is harsh), studying, painting (3 more rooms to go) or playing prereleases I shouldn’t.
I’ll try to get in some games this week. I like your report but maybe you should also give us numbers: as in Zoo – Affinity: 8 — 10…
It seems that most of our decks die to single cards right now except for the Zoo deck. I also don’t like Dark Confidant in Zoo and would be happy with some Katakis. I also don’t like Figure of Destiny. On turn 3 you just wanna LD them so no way you’re making it a 4/4.
How about going back to a 3 color version?? WGR obv. Wouldn’t this improve the mirror a lot? As Incinerate kills everything except for Goyf anyways. We could run Katakis instead of Confidants, maybe a Seal of Fire extra (I’d cut Figure of Destiny as well so I want some more one-drops. Unfortunately, Seal turn 1 doesn’t really excite me neither). Cutting both Black and Blue limits our sideboard options though… but I’ll gladly take that.
How bad would Heap Doll be, btw, in this deck? Or am I pushing it? After all, he grows our Goyfs! (Okay, I’ll quit but wanted to mention it…).
Or what about the WB Fiend? Couldn’t he be just really good? One-drop, this guy to take your Remand/Condescend/something else cheap that stops our T3 LD plan, T3 LD? We’d need Black again though… and probably the singleton Steam Vents as well… Not even sure if we can ever cast WB on turn 2 (as 8 of our 11 1 drops don’t need W or B).
Does Ronom Unicorn do anything in this format? Probably not.
On Thursday I told Pascal to put Molten Rain in his Zoo list and at the end of the evening during the draft he came to me and told me how insane it was. He did like his Confidants though… but I’m sure I could convince him. Both he and his testing partner would play Zoo if the PT were tomorrow.
I’ll be proxying up the Hulk deck and try to play a bit with it tomorrow at the prerelease.
If I get news I’ll mail ya. Thanks for the last two mails, though… I learned a lot.
—
From Me:
I actually thought about the Heap Doll in Zoo as well, but hadn’t thought of it as a maindeck option. That is probably way too cute but I’ll try it out. Figure is seriously just a one-mana 1/1 anyway, always, so it can’t be too much worse.
Sorry for not having numbers. I don’t remember exactly but I’ll try to do that more in the future.
The new Mesmeric Fiend guy is really interesting. I’m trying to think of the optimal way to make his mana work; you probably have to go like Overgrown Tomb/Sacred Foundry most of the time (as that covers Nacatl, Kird Ape, Isamaru into him while maximizing all) which actually doesn’t seem that bad, as the B can also be used on Fulminator Mage. I like him a hell of a lot though, and he’d certainly be better than Confidant. I like this sort of incidental disruption element to Zoo. Like you’re not trying to be Rock; you’re still trying to win by going balls to the wall. You just happen to get in some disruption at no extra charge.
The thing about Flames over Incinerate is mainly the dome. Like the difference between three and five on one burn spell isn’t actually that much; the main thing is that drawing 2 Flames all of the sudden gives you room to race most combo decks. You’re never really like “this sucks, I drew a Tribal Flames.” I just wish there were more ways to offset the life loss from all your lands.
—
(From Frank, in response to the above)
Some comments:
– Zoo with 8 LD: seems interesting, although against many decks Cryoclasm is better than Fulminator Mage. Does the same thing, but deals 3 damage extra. At least, Cryoclasm is better than Fulminator Mage against the decks against which 8 LD is good (i.e. not Affinity or Doran, but pretty much all other decks). Playing Cryoclasm main may go too far, but it may be an idea to play 4 Molten Rain main and 4 Cryoclasm sideboard, and then board up to 8 LD against the Blue-based combo and control decks. This way, your deck is better versus those decks after board, and you don’t have too many awkward LD cards against aggro decks in game 1.
– Artifact storm plan [I sent out some list I lost with KCI into Storm spells]: cool idea, but I wouldn’t know right now how to turn it into something that is better/faster/more consistent than regular Desire. It’s a promising angle though.
– The BWG Loam list seems quite bad [we talked on AIM about some aggro-Loam decks. It’s probably good for the sake of your respective lifespans that I don’t have the decks; they were almost offensively terrible, and didn’t contain cards like, you know, Thoughtseize]. I passionately hate Smallpox (yes, Thoughtseize is better), but it just looks like a regular Doran deck with 4 Raven’s Crime and 4 Loam. I think Loam + Crime is only good against combo or control (I bet you’ll board them out versus aggro), and against combo or control I would guess they are only good if you get them together. Furthermore, Raven’s Crime seems pretty bad if you didn’t draw a Life from the Loam… I haven’t played with Loam + Crime yet, but my initial thoughts are that the combo is not super amazing. It is very slow and mana intensive, doesn’t improve your board position, and can’t prevent the opponent from topdecking his way out of it. I would guess that RavenLoam works better in a Gifts deck, with 1 Loam and 1 Raven’s Crime, which you can search if needed versus combo or control, not as 4-ofs in a semi-aggro deck like this. Then again, I haven’t tested with it yet.
– I like the RGB Loam list better, since it has Seismic Assault, which I think makes much better use of Life from the Loam than Raven’s Crime. However, a problem is that you only have 4 Loams in your deck to make Seismic Assault good, while you had 4 Burning Wish + 3 Life from the Loam = 7 in the past. A big difference. Drawing Life from the Loam in a deck filled with fetch-lands and cycling-lands is never bad. But drawing Seismic Assault (or Raven’s Crime, for that matter) if you don’t have Loam in your hand seems extremely weak. This reminds me of the first Extended deck I tried in Copenhagen, which was something like:
4 Swans
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Seismic Assault
4 Loam
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Kird Ape
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Chrome Mox
1 Conflagrate
25 lands including some cycling lands
(Actually, there was also Top in this deck, as it wasn’t banned back then.)
I figured it would be nice to make a beatdown deck with multiple combo aspects as an afterthought, backup plan. Swans is good with Assault and Chain; Chain is good with Swans or beatdown; Assault is good with Swans and Loam; the other cards are always solid. At least this deck held 8 cards (Swans and Loam) that made S. Assault playable. However, in testing this deck just seemed too unfocused and didn’t work well. You’d too often draw something like Assault and Chan, or Swans and Loam, without the other pieces, and the beatdown wasn’t fast enough.
So the basic question is: is a card like Seismic Assault or Raven’s Crime actually good enough with just 4 Loams in the deck? If you are too often unhappy when you draw an Assault or Crime without holding a Loam, then we might as well cut it all and just play regular Doran, and explore Gifts Rock versions with 1 Loam.
Frank
—
From Frank:
Hey,
My testing results so far:
UW Tron, GiftsRock with Loam etc., and Protean Hulk combo all seem to be too slow. These decks lost 60-70% of the games vs. Affinity and Zoo simply because the beatdown decks were too fast (sample size of around 6 games per matchup: not much, but the outcome feels correct).
Swans and Desire combo perform better, beating Affinity and Zoo around 60-70% of the games (admittedly, a similar small sample size). Desire goldfishes on turn 4 and can sometimes win on turn 3 if needed, while Swans has a lot of interaction to slow the opposing beatdown (Wall of Roots, Remand, Chain of Plasma, Swans, etc.).
The Doran deck has been posting steady 50-50s in pretty much every matchup… it is one of those decks that is never horrible, but isn’t exceptional either.
Affinity beats Zoo. Before sideboarding, at least.
I’m going to do some testing with Ruud & Rogier next Tuesday. I’m going to explore a Faeries deck then.
The decks I like most right now are Affinity, Zoo, Swans, and Desire.
Frank
—
From Me:
What does your Swans deck look like? The one you sent out earlier? I’ll start trying to build it. We need to start developing sideboards, I suppose, but my results echo yours. Why do you think Tron is too slow nowadays when it used to be just fine?
Right now I am very keen on Affinity but I want a plan versus the hate. I will test out Swans as soon as I can.
—
From Frank:
Did some testing today. Quick results:
UB Faeries – Desire 3-3 (Stifle was obv. very important)
UB Faeries – Zoo 4-2 (Zoo was often simply too fast)
Doran – Affinity 2-2
Doran – Swans Control 1-3
Desire – Swans Control 8-4 (Desire combos faster, and is often able to play around a Remand or Condescend)
And Ruud tested a Second Sunrise deck with Chromatic Sphere + Star + Conjurer’s Bauble, Lotus Bloom + Reshape, Etherium Sculptor, Thoughtcast, artifact lands + Ironworks, and some more cards like that. After an 0-5 start against regular Affinity, we threw it away; this deck was never fast enough (if Affinity is on the play, you have to be able to kill on turn 3), and I also saw a game in which 2 Second Sunrises were cast and first 4, then 6 Eggs were returned, but the deck still fizzled afterwards, drawing nothing but lands, Lotus Blooms, etc.
Frank
—
From Me:
Good to know the Sunrise deck wasn’t getting there. My problem with it was just how essential it was to resolve a Sunrise, and how savagely you could get blown out if it was counterspelled [I posted an earlier version of this list, which has been lost to the depths of the internet]. Which version of Desire were you running, by the way?
So far I haven’t found any bad matchups for Zoo. The combo decks are faster but sometimes you can just get them. How do we feel about O-Ring?
—
From Frank:
I love how you saw straight through my typo of “UB Faeries – Zoo 4-2” by saying “So far I haven’t found any bad matchups for Zoo.” My real result was “UB Faeries – Zoo 2-4,” but it seems you had already figured that out. Masterful.
—
From: Me
Hahaha. Clearly it’s my sheer mastery and not dyslexia at work. That said, I have no idea how Faeries could claim a good matchup against Zoo ever. The Zoo deck just throws too much at you.
I am pretty sure that 4 Sculler is really, really good.
—
From Marijn:
Heya!
Played some actual games yesterday with Zoo and here is what I think right now:
8 LD is too much. The thing is: you never want to draw two. You just wanna draw one on turn 3 after which you can burn them death within 1 or 2 turns. If you can’t burn them death by then: you’re probably doing something wrong anyways and losing already. By playing Fulminator you are losing some early game power.
Sculler is the nuts. We should run 4 but the manabase suffers from it. Our list before had 2 Stomping Ground but that is too much if we are running Sculler. I also cut the Steam Vents in favor of lands that actually cast things. It makes Tribal Flames a little bit worse, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. Also, running 8 three-mana spells makes Remand ‘good’ against you, which is something you don’t wanna do.
Kataki wasn’t all that in a lot of matchups. Did nothing versus Hulk, did nothing versus Faeries… I don’t think it’s worth maindecking. The Zoo – Faeries matchup was actually pretty close. Faeries was winning all his games on Stifle, Jitte and Threads of Disloyalty.
I also played some Hulk (versus Faeries) and, surprisingly enough, Hulk was winning. It must be said that I won two games on the singleton Pact of Negation which I added. I was very excited for about 10 minutes because I thought we could run Last Rites in that deck (which would have been pretty insane, I think), but unfortunately it is Odyssey, and we can’t. If we could find a way for the Hulk deck to beat Heap Doll, I think there is something out there. Stifle can be solves by running more Pacts I think and not a lot of people are running counters / Extirpate anyways. Running Stifle might be something as it 1) slows down Zoo, 2) solves Heap Doll, 3) is good in the mirror and versus Storm decks, and 4) Tormod’s Crypt from the board.
—
From Stuart:
So the question then is. Can you build a deck that can have a reasonable game versus Zoo/Affinity and still handle combo decks? Seems like the good cards versus aggro are pretty terrible versus combo, and it is hard to even predict which combo decks will be popular. Halo is fine versus some but utterly blank versus others.
It also seems like Zoo has a lot of really good sideboard cards versus any combo decks you can’t outrace: Rule of Law Bear, Teeg.
Zoo with main deck Sculler and Kataki seems like the best deck currently. We might need to try and work out what is the best mirror plan too. I’m not too happy with main deck Finks, but I guess it is fine versus Affinty too?
…
Okay, there is a lot of juice here, which is why I went ahead and posted the shorter, bullet-point emails even though they seem at times to be a bit disjointed. It’s interesting, looking back on it, how much context depends on the fact that you’re talking to somebody ten times per day and are continuing with the same thought processes you’ve kept in your head since the day’s earlier emails.
One of the first things you’ll notice is the group’s disparate priorities when it comes to testing results. I, for example, didn’t even list numbers, while every single one of Frank’s emails starts out with the numbers and only proceeds to synthesis and analysis once those have been taken care of. You’ll also notice that the raw data for game-sets is small (six-game sets pre-SB), which reflects the nature of a format as wide-open as we expected this one to be; the most important thing becomes getting a “feel” for the matchups. But I am glad my group is comfortable enough with one another to ask right off the bad to include numbers in results, as opposed to just letting me type and type and type and not even reading my paragraphs of discussion because it’s not the kind of data they’re looking for. This has happened to me before and can be tremendously disheartening, causing rifts in the group because different people are looking for different things.
In case there was any doubt that Frank is a playtesting machine, these emails should cement that reputation permanently. He is a constant source of data and a consistent analytic crusader. He tends to make few definite assertions, but the ones he does make you can trust to be absolutely valid. I include the discussion on the Swans deck from a previous PT, and the unsuccessful Doran/Loam list he alludes to, because I think the lesson holds up generally: make sure that you’re not trying to do too much at once.
Notice the progression of our thought patterns as we slowly come to realize what decks can and cannot cut it in the present format. We start to realize what wins faster and more consistently, and gradually start to move some decks to the foreground. Note that I ask for Frank’s list even though I’m testing a Swans list of my own at the same time. This is important in any complex deck with a lot of options because, particularly with Gifts in the picture, one single card or one piece of technology, even one newly-implemented but previously-unseen strategy can swing the course of a matchup entirely. Thus it was important to make sure we were on the same page there, so our results would remain meaningful from one list to another. If I said “Swans was losing,” but what I meant when I said “Swans” was different from what he meant, this could have potentially disastrous consequences.
Note the sort of separate adoption of 4 Sculler as the “mainstream,” even though we hadn’t agreed upon it explicitly as a group ever. Communication can foster consensus even implicitly.
Finally, I am impressed with what Marijn was able to do here given his admittedly limited amount of testing. Because he knew he wouldn’t be able to jam the hours that some of us were putting in, he made sure that his commentary was concise and to the point and that the matchups he was testing were the most important matchups we needed to test. The analysis was precise and detailed and communicated exactly what needed to be communicated. Meanwhile, Stuart’s summary of this discussion let us know when we had reached the end of a phase and could start proceeding in a new direction with new priorities. It’s always important to have a voice in a group that is willing to say, “okay, we’ve established this, this, and this; let’s do X now or figure out Y so that we can accomplish Z.” Otherwise, everyone is expending energy but is not really building to an objective.
…
From Me:
How do we feel about this week’s batch of GerryT decks?
—
Frank:
Dredge: neat idea to put the Raven’s Crime + Loam shell into a classic dredge combo deck. Perhaps you wouldn’t even have to get funky with Akroma and/or Dread Return and/or Narcomoeba and Worm Harvest can win by itself. So how about adding Worm Harvest and something like Goblin Lore instead? Could turn into an interesting deck…
Control Loam: seems familiar: a Doran deck with random Raven’s Crime, which was bad.
New Gifts Rock: when I commented on your Gifts Rock deck with countermagic, this is what I had in mind. Primal Command seems like a smart addition, and Rise/Fall is original. I would probably play Rise/Fall just as a one-of to fetch with Gifts, but it’s probably better than Recollect.
New Gifts Rock 2: Heh. That’s your Gifts Rock deck with countermagic again. I’m starting to think that perhaps a mix between the two could be good, as it gives you more flexibility with Gifts and your opponents will never know what’s up. Play like 1 Remand and 1 Spell Snare and leave the countermagic at that.
Urg Control: just seems bad. I don’t even think Magus of the Moon type cards are good in Extended right now. And apart from that this deck just doesn’t seem that powerful to me.
UG Tron: I think the White version is just better. Decree of Justice and Wrath of God are cards I’d like to include in a Tron deck.
5c Tron: Funky! However, I don’t think it makes sense to screw your entire manabase just to be able to play 1 Life from the Loam (instead of Damnation, Firespout, and Slaughter Pact you can also run more Wrath of God).
Storm: Interesting take. Extra Grapeshot, Remand, and Pyromancer’s Swath and less Infernal Tutor, lands, and a Sins of the Past compared to my version. Worth trying out, I think.
Frank
—
Me:
Stifle is probably very good in Zoo, but setting up Kird Ape + Sculler + Stifle seems like an exercise in wanting to commit suicide.
What deck of ours doesn’t Chalice at one demolish?
I agree with the conclusion that Zoo is the best deck currently. I think Dark Confidant is garbage and is never happening. Maybe Stifle buys Gerry just a ton more time, and it does seem like a strict upgrade to Fulminator, if we can worry about the Blue. You can also of course just “get” people without running the comparatively bad one-drops.
Would Drowned Rusalka or Magus of the Bazaar be good in Hulk? I remember Rusalka being just insane in Standard dredge but obviously you had infinitely more time. Still, what I hate about that deck is that you have to resolve an Ideas Unbound or a Thirst for Knowledge (or Thoughtseize, sometimes) before you can win, which makes you more of a three-card than a two-card combo deck. Would there be a way to, for example, run that kill in a shell more similar to our Swans deck?
I tested exclusively Swans today versus 8LD Zoo, Affinity, and Desire. I found the Condescends to be garbage against basically everyone unless you’re on the play and it’s turn one or two. It’s so easy to play around. I am not using this as an argument for running 8 three-mana LD spells anymore, but I kept winning games with Zoo by just not running spells into countermagic if they were telgraphing the sh** out of it. Now, “don’t cast spells” is not an argument for any particular spell being fine, but what I did learn from that more was that Remand and Condescend aren’t good against people if they don’t let them be. So if you’re clearly behind, and they just don’t cast anything and beat you down with what is on the board, you’re sort of up sh** creek. That said, I liked the interactive possibilities of the Swan deck, and I was just mauling Affinity so much that it was not close.
What I don’t like about Affinity is that, while powerful, it’s extremely non-interactive while at the same time being very easy to interact with. It’s probably the most consistent “combo” deck out there, but there are Kataki and Ancient Grudge in the format.
By the way, if everyone is taking things like Molten Rain out of Zoo and running cheapmana.dec – and the combo decks are ritual decks and run infinite Ponders etc – is there any deck besides Affinity that doesn’t just get absolutely and completely crushed by a Chalice at one?
HulkSolvingHeapDollProblem.dec (is Runed Halo a card to worry about?)
2 Reveillark
2 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic
4 Protean Hulk
2 Body Double
3 Stifle
2 Pact of Negation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Ponder
4 Serum Visions
4 Footsteps of the Goryo
4 Chrome Mox
1 Steam Vents
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Watery Grave
2 Island
1 Swamp
What is Zoo looking like right now? I am fine with taking out Fulminators, and I like Stifle a lot. It’s rather high technology. Taking Molten Rain out seems like we’re begging to be beaten by random decks. This seems like one of those PTs where some random Astral Slide deck is going to make Top 8 just by getting paired against Zoo decks all day. I like both Frank’s and my Desire decks better than Chapin’s, even though Ad Nauseam is really good. It’s certainly better than cards like Sins from the Past. I like Pentad Prism as well – sort of. What you don’t want to do is make yourself vulnerable to Kataki if you’re using it to set up an Ad Nauseam, and Nauseam makes you much worse against Countermagic. Didn’t TEPS decks used to run some form of interactive spell to protect themselves? I think Prism is basically better than Sphere most of the time, though, and I am a fan of a Sphere in the first place. It’s just so powerful to have the mana-investment option.
I am not saying “cut Ad Nauseam” but I think four of them is too many. It gives you a viable second option, sure, but your deck is also very high-CC density at that point. I was losing some games to Zoo because all the sudden because the fact that my life total scaled mattered. Usually it’s just important whether you’re at zero or not.
I suppose I might just be too worried about the full 5c manabase in Zoo; I remember people doing it to support Threads. It’s just so random and dangerous.
I have still yet to test much Faeries against things other than Zoo. But, like. You’re maindecking all of these awful anti-combo cards like Bitterblossom and Jitte and Threads. How do you win against other decks? Sure you have a smattering of countermagic and Bob or whatever but let’s be real here.
I am thinking a Zoo list with the following is the way to go…
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Isamaru
2 Mogg Fanatic
3 Stifle
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
4 Molten Rain
1 X
It is worth noting how utterly insane Wall of Roots was against Zoo. You have no idea how much I want Swans to get there, but I just don’t think it does. And the trouble about playing any of the other combo decks in a control shell is that you have to devote too many slots to it or play too many bad cards.
—
Frank:
14 2-drops in Zoo but only 11 1-drops? I usually respect GerryT’s decks, but that just can’t be right.
An idea: try a Hulk deck with Gifts Ungiven! Gifts is at least a tutor for Hulk in the graveyard, and can obviously do other nice things. For example, if you have a Thoughtseize or Ideas Unbound in hand, you can Gifts for Hulk + Through the Breach + Reclaim + Footsteps and you will always be able to combo. Gifts may turn out to be too slow (especially if you don’t do anything relevant in the first couple turns, a Zoo or Affinity deck will have won before you can even cast Gifts), but it will make the deck more consistent in finding the combo pieces.
So for example:
2 Reveillark
2 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic
4 Protean Hulk
2 Body Double
1 Through the Breach
1 Reclaim
1 Summoner’s Pact
1 Eerie Procession
1 Thoughtseize
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Ponder
4 Footsteps of the Goryo
4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
—
Marijn:
He also has Chrome Mox and Atifle as ‘one-drops.’
…
I added this section just to highlight how much of an impact authors on the internet, and results posted on the internet, tend to have. The second Gerry’s articles went up on StarCityGames.com, we knew we’d have to start taking into account their effects, not only on our results, but on the metagame as a whole. At the same time, it’s important not to let what’s posted over-bias your perception of what people are actually going to be playing, either. We found, for example, that Ad Nauseam was exceptionally good in Mind’s Desire, though probably as more of a three-or-two-of. Because of that, we ended up putting more stake in Gaddock Teeg versus Desire than we did Canonist, because of Storage lands and Prisms allowing Ad Nauseams to be cast without Ritual backup. From Zoo’s side of the table, Canonist slows down Zoo’s own goldfish by about a half-turn because you can no longer cast two Tribal Flames at once, and spending the second turn to cast Canonist meant that damage output was not being maximized either. Sure, Nauseam is not at its best against Zoo, I will obviously be the first to admit. But it sure does power you through a hate card – unless that hate card is Teeg, in which case you can’t cast Nauseam in the first place.
…
From Marijn:
Hey all.
Did a bunch of testing today.
First of all: Affinity 5 – Zoo 0. (pre-sideboarding that is, and it was never really close). It must be said that Glaze Fiend was a beating. One of the Belgian guys came up with an Affinity list with Glaze Fiend, and he really surprised me. He’s basically a two-turn clock every time you play it. I cut the Enforcers for them, and I think they are really good. You should all try them out.
Zoo versus UR Desire 4-2. Sculler is very good here. Won me at least 2 games. One of my losses were cause I tapped my Steam Vents on turn 2 to cast Seal of Fire and the desire deck just killed me on his turn 2. I was obviously holding Stifle. Awkward.
Zoo versus Swans from PV: 5-1. Pretty good matchup for Zoo. Swans was just too slow and Sculler is pretty good. This is another matchup where Stifle stinks. I didn’t really like the Stifles. They are only really good in a small number of matchups and in the others they pretty much do nothing. I think Oblivion Ring might be good. Jitte was pretty bad for me as well. It always felt like a dead card although I did win one game on it.
Zoo versus RDW: 1-3. Molten Rain screwed us two games and cards like Stifle / Sculler basically do nothing against RDW.
NLU versus Swans: 6-1
NLU versus Affinity: 3-3
Zoo versus Hulk: 2-2
Affinity versus Hulk: 2-2
I know this ain’t a lot but it’s something. As for now I like the Affinity deck with Glaze Fiend and still think NLU might be something. Jan just always seems to win with it.
Here is the Affinity list I’d run:
2 Glimmervoid
1 Nexus
4 B artifact land
4 U artifact land
4 W artifact land
4 Colorless artifact land
4 Chromatic Star
4 Cranial Plating
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Thoughtcast
4 Glaze Fiend
4 Master of Etherium
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Heap Doll
1 Arcbound Worker (was really good versus Zoo and changed some of the matches completely)
4 Ornithopter
Zoo list I’d run:
The one Zac suggested last night -3 Stifle -1 Jitte -1 Seal of Fire, +3 Oblivion Ring +2 Incinerate.
I tried out one Chrome Mox in Zoo but it sucked. It was never better than the 22nd land.
That’s it. Still don’t know what to play and it was my last full day I could spend before Berlin (except for Thursday before the PT). Zac, your turn… I’m out of inspiration.
—
From Frank:
Hey!
Last weekend was PTQ weekend, so I played 2 PTQs and did some Extended testing in the meantime. I made the finals of both PTQs and scooped to friends. Already looking forward to the next PTQ!
But now about Extended. First, regarding your comments on the Affinity deck, I disagree on cutting Enforcer. I still think it is a very solid card and I prefer it over colored cards that you sometimes lack the right mana for. I am also still playing Workers over Heap Dolls main deck. I think Worker is significantly better in too many matchups. However, I’ll try out Glaze Fiend and/or Sculler. Perhaps I’ll do cut something like 1 Enforcer, 1 Ornithopter, 1 Springleaf Drum and add 3 of them, or something like that. I don’t think I’ll like it, but we’ll see.
I tested the 5c Zoo deck against Desire, and won 5-1. Desire used to beat GWR Zoo about 65% of the time before board. But Sculler is very good, and Stifle wins many games. 5c Zoo also beat Hulk combo (no Gifts yet) 5-1. I certainly do not like the Hulk combo deck. Still have to try it out with Gifts, but I expect that it is just not good/fast enough and it has to run too many awkward cards like Carrion Feeder. I also tested a few games of 5c Zoo against RGW Zoo and while I think RGW Zoo has a slight edge, I don’t think there is that much difference. 5c Zoo does take more damage from its lands, and it is more easily color screwed, and Stifle is kind of awkward (it is only good on turn 1 or 2 IF they actually have a fetch-land AND you have to keep mana open for it), but Tribal Flames can randomly kill a Goyf which Incinerate cannot do and Tidehollow Sculler is better than Teeg or Kataki.
My version of 5C Zoo was:
14 1-drops:
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Mogg Fanatic
1 Figure of Destiny
8 2-drops:
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Tarmogoyf
16 Spells:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Molten Rain
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Stifle
22 land:
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
I also played a bit more with Doran, but I don’t think it will cut it. I previously felt it was 50-50 against everything, but right now I think it’s more like 45% against everything. The Doran deck just doesn’t excite me.
I cleaned up the rest of the 20 replies that were still attached to this email, hehe!
Frank
—
From Marijn:
Played a bit with the Zoo this noon and I found myself mulliganing quite a lot. Most were cause of only one land though but also hands like Helix, Flames, Molten Rain, Kataki, 3 lands you have to mulligan. The WB guy was insane though. Won me at least a game (and only played about 8). I think we should run 4 of them and maybe just cut the Fulminators, as I found them to be a bit slow (and I was playing versus the Protean Hulk where they should basically shine). Not sure if the 8 LD is the way to go but don’t abandon it yet please! It’s probably much better in other matchups because Protean Hulk basically only needs 3 mana to go off.
—
From: Me
Yeah, Fulminator is actually very loose against Hulk. I can get behind Scullers; what do we want as our other two-drop?
And you do mulligan a lot, in my experience. The thing is, the deck is well-equipped to do so.
—
From: Me
Did a lot more testing today. I wish the results themselves were promising, but they confirmed more of what we already know. On the bright side, I finally have some good reasons for being more or less settled on Zoo.
Basically, four decks in the format do very linear things very well: Mind’s Desire, Footsteps, Zoo, and Affinity. I tried on the train ride back to build a control deck that could successfully navigate all of these different angles of attack, and found it impossible. The reason is that there are not cards that attack all these different things at once, and so when you try to do so you end up with this very Doran-like deck that wins when it draws the right cards at the right time and loses when it doesn’t. Swans stands as probably the most “controllish” deck in the format in all its varying forms, but I hate trying to race the pure combo decks with it. Zoo is really the only deck that can interact while furthering its overall gameplan. The Remand decks do this to an extent, but they do it on other people’s terms, and increasingly the card Remand is being cut anyway. But Tidehollow Sculler often hits the exact spell Zoo needs to push its edge, while filling the mana curve and being up to par with what the deck wants to be doing in its early turns anyway. But, we all knew this.
I still need to test more Faeries.
Today I tried Glaze Fiend in Affinity. I found it was fine, but it didn’t matter that much in terms of the determinate factors that make the deck win. You improve your clock a little versus the combo decks, though you can slow yourself down with the additional Glimmervoid, but you lose a free way to gain initiative against Zoo and lose some percentage points by activating their Mogg Fanatics and increasing the value of their O-Rings substantially by being likely to only present one crucial target if they are on the offensive. Fortunately, that matchup is still heavily in your favor, so it doesn’t matter much. The point is that it doesn’t really push the deck over the edge; it doesn’t give Affinity anything fundamental that it wouldn’t have otherwise, except maybe justify the inclusion of Master of Etherium even more than he is already by ensuring that the turn 3 Master is almost always lethal on turn 4. My problem with Affinity is that in exchange for a slightly faster goldfish, you open yourself up to being interacted with games 2 and 3 in ways that you can’t really compensate for. Like, I think your matchups against the field game 1 are slightly worse than Zoo’s, because you don’t really deal your damage in increments, you aren’t interactive, and you frequently go all-in on threats, while sometimes just losing to your own manabase, but making up for this with some utterly explosive Drum-fueled draws that really just get there (and you’re also better against random spot removal).
Still, I think the difference game 1 against the field versus your percentage with Zoo is something like 5-10 percentage points, depending on the respective builds, and you make up for this with an utter thrashing of Zoo game 1. The problem is not that in game 2 it’s very easy to hose you; we knew that already, and in theory it’s very easy to hose Zoo as well; just find ways to kill a bunch of guys. The problem for Affinity is that it’s really easy to hose you in ways that people can easily fit into their sideboards.
Against Zoo, you could beat them if you wanted to run some Kitchen Finks, Loxodon Hierarchs, Threads of Disloyalties, Jittes, whatever. The problem is that it’s more difficult to play these cards, except for Threads out of Swans which gets hit by Oblivion Rings that you’re bringing in anyway (Incidentally, I think it might be very good for Footsteps/Desire to bring in Threads to buy some time precisely because Zoo is not going to have Rings. Also, while my mind is on it, we need to find something better than Teeg against the Grapeshot version of Desire.) It’s very easy for someone to get W for Kataki on turn 2. So what we need to do, if we’re at all interested in playing Affinity, is to experiment with sideboard plans… Seals of Fire, Slaughter Pacts, even just bringing in 4 Atogs and 4 Fatal Frenzies every game, knowing the non-artifact spells make your overall plan worse, but treying to hit them over the head. If the Kataki thing is no longer true, then Affinity is the deck; The problem is that, well, I think it is true, and I don’t want to sit there losing DI games at a Pro Tour that I spent infinite money to fly to from Malaysia due to my opponent hitting his Katakis consistently.
I tried the Dredge deck, too. I think it was actually good when conceptualized, but the problem now is that Desire decks have Ad Nauseam if they want it, which totally ruins the whole “Crime you” plan. It used to be once you got Crime they were just dead because they could never amass a critical amount of storm spells, since there’s no way really to just sit on Spellbombs now and try to go off the second you draw a Ritual. Now, though, there’s no way to compete against Nauseam, no sure way to compete against the topdecking of a Footsteps in time, and absent Wall of Roots (and in the presence of a lot of Mogg Fanatics from Zoo) no way to keep Zoo from killing you on time. Zoo is so good at dealing 17 points of damage by turn 4. If you can stay at 18 or above it’s shocking how much of a difference it makes. Unfortunately, Dredge can’t usually do this, and I don’t take the deck seriously.
I tried the latest version of Hulk and found it okay. The Gifts version was very slow and I wasn’t winning, and the other deck was fine but unexciting. Like, it kills quickly some of the time, sure, cool. What I don’t like about the deck, I eventually realized, is that your opponent has perfect information basically all of the time. Sometimes this matters and sometimes it does not, but like… with Desire, all their sh** is in their hand, there are all these cantrips they can cast while going off, and it’s up to the pilot to maximize all that. Sometimes you’re stone dead to what they are holding and sometimes you are not – but on any given turn you have no idea. With Hulk, meanwhile, like if I am playing Zoo against it I know that unless they have four mana, including two Black, and a spare two life – usually three, because of all the damage they take from their lands – I cannot lose if a Hulk is not in their graveyard. Typically, they need at least six, one Blue and one Black, to kill me immediately, since they can’t Ideas and Footsteps on the same turn. Occasionally they’ll just Five Mana me with Through the Breach, which I can’t see coming, and which I like a whole lot in the deck largely for that reason. The reason all of this matters is that, especially if I Sculler them, I can do the match for how much freedom I have to deploy threats, whether I need to Molten Rain, whether I need to burn now and pray, what I need to be trying to topdeck (enabling me to do my planning in advance), etc. Likewise for Desire, I typically know exactly when I need to try to kill them and how aggressive I need to be with my Ad Nauseams. On the exceptions like Chrome Mox I can still get a rough estimate since they are giving me all this free information by discarding and imprinting all of these cards. The deck feels very much like you’re assembling puzzle pieces, and I hate my opponent knowing more or less where I am at every step of the way. With Desire, your sh** is all in your hand, and they have no real means of predicting what is there at a given point unless they hit you with a Sculler or Thoughtseize. The maximum amount of information they have is usually whether you have a Storage Land, how many counters are on your Lotus Bloom, and occasionally – very occasionally, when you don’t draw exclusively sack-lands or Duals – whether you’re the Grapeshot deck or the Tendrils deck because you played something like a Cascade Bluffs.
Oh yeah, other points: Mogg Fanatic is very good in Zoo at doing one thing versus Desire: blanking their Angel’s Graces when they use them as Fogs. Sure, the Nauseam variants only usually play one or occasionally, very occasionally, two, but against traditional Zoo builds they are really effective as a Fog to buy a critical turn. I was able to win two separate games today because I had a Fanatic on the table and just killed them on their upkeep.
Point two: Because in the combo decks and in Swans, some versions play Remand and some do not, occasionally it’s good to play a Mox before you would normally do so in order to bluff the potential for interaction. This is frequently because of Molten Rain, or because the traditional anti-Remand play is to play for example your turn 2 Kird Ape without playing your land first, trying to “bait” the Remand even if you don’t have another red land. Frequently you’d rather them play that than a Goyf or a Sculler.
Anyway, there was one very promising development in terms of the final build of the Zoo deck. However, I’m hesitant to mention it because after you hear it and realize I am serious, I don’t think any of you will ever want to work with me again, hehe!
So we have by now established, more or less, a certain “core” of cards for Zoo that we’re 100% sure we want to run. It looks like:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Tarmogoyf
That’s thirty cards, and I realize that Frank favors Figure of Destiny over the third Isamaru, whereas I would rather die in than run Figure in my deck, vastly preferring Savannah Lions if it comes to that, but that’s not really the point. What matters is the fourteen one-drops are basically agreed upon, as are the rest of the things I just mentioned. For the rest, we’ve vacillated, but there are several contenders.
The common thread, we’ve realized, among all our options, is that there is a substantial drop-off in quality between these first thirty and these last eight.
We’ve had as many as four Molten Rains and as many as four Incinerates, which is what I think Marijn’s last build recommended. We’ve had three Stifles, two Oblivion Rings, and singletons of Jitte, Kataki, Gaddock Teeg, and Seal of Fire. My problem with the two-drops and the Incinerates is that there is really no good time you want to cast them. The trouble is that the only turns of the game that matter, really, are turns 1-4; anything else and assuming your creatures alive, the opponent is probably dead regardless of what you cast. But you don’t really want to be casting Incinerate on turn 2, nor Teeg/Kataki/Whatever except in one particular matchup; every other matchup you have better things to do, and (crucially) even without the particularized cards, the deck is good enough to beat anything if it draws its premier spells. Also, as crucially, you don’t make your mulligan decisions based on any of the non-core cards. The thing was, when I was playing Zoo I always wanted to draw one-drops, and I always wanted Tribal Flames and Sculler. Tarmogoyf is too good not to run and is important for clocking and bashing through Enforcers etc. The rest of the cards were similar; they would win games every once in awhile, but frequently they were sitting in your hand in the turns that matter and you were wishing they were something else, so that next turn, when your premier thirty had been exhausted, you didn’t have to settle for this tremendous downgrade in quality. Sometimes Molten Rains won games, but other times you wish they had been anything else, and most importantly you never want two. Stifle was probably the best of these, but as Marijn pointed out, it’s really awkward to have to run Breeding Pool for two Blue cards, so we haven’t really decided anything conclusively. Incinerate is fine but you rarely have time to cast it, Jitte is insane in the mirror and often your only chance against Affinity but totally useless versus combo, and Oblivion Ring is good as long as you don’t draw more than one. The thing is, drawing one of this type of card can conceivably win a matchup, but the games you lose, besides the screw-or-flood-related ones, are the games where this type of card piles up. Where you draw two of your eight “filler” spells. When you start to sit around doing nothing.
It got to the point where 90% of the time I was sitting there on turn 2 as I played my Sculler saying “Jesus, I wish I could cycle this Gaddock teeg,” or Helixed a guy in the mirror saying “now I wish I could drop a clock” as I sat and stared at the Seal of Fire I was about to deploy, or sat staring at two Molten Rains knowing the second was literally a blank. It was in my next to final match of the night where I had an epiphany:
I can.
Cycle those cards, that is.
This is the version of Zoo that I sleeved up for my final two matches, initially as a joke.
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Mishra’s Bauble
2 Molten Rain
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
1 Mountain
1 Steam Vents
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Grounds
Yes, I know. I am advocating a deck with Mishra’s Bauble in it for an Extended Pro Tour Event. Or at least, testing for an Extended Pro Tour event. Hear me out.
There are two things about drawing a card on your next turn’s upkeep that are way worse than straight-up drawing a card: it’s terrible in your opening hand, and it’s terrible in a topdeck war. Fortunately, all of the cards we cut for Baubles are terrible in your opening hand also, or more to the point are absolutely not cards that affect your decision to keep or mulligan an opener. In my experience, I want one-drops and land – a land which is not a Breeding Pool – and none of the cards Bauble has replaced qualify. When I say “the time delay only matters in a topdeck war,” it’s because in this deck, mana is a limiting factor, and if you’re not in a topdeck war you’re almost always casting something else. The second you draw Bauble it’s becoming something else on your opponent’s upkeep, so unless you need a permanent right away (e.g. aren’t casting another spell) it doesn’t matter. The only time this ever happens is, therefore, a topdeck war, or (significantly) the times you rip a Molten Rain on your third turn. Fortunately, this is not the type of format where you frequently want to rip a Rain on your third turn.
In every other case, given the gamut of across-the-board matchups, you want to have any other card in your deck at least 80% of the time you’re actually drawing your “filler” spells.
Furthermore – and this is actually the kicker – the Bauble itself has two very important advantages. Number one is obviously Tarmogoyf. The thing I think we’ve all noticed is that these Goyfs are substantially worse than last season’s. This is because the Zoo deck has a hell of a lot more permanents; there are no Gaea’s Mights and Rift Bolts and Incinerates varying the hell out of his size, and no Top-fueled control decks killing your men and providing their own creatures to kill. You only have eight burn spells, four Insants and four Sorceries, and a whole hell of a lot less of a possibility to grow Goyf on the third turn from maybe a 1/2 or a 2/3 (there’s always a land) to a 3/4 or 4/5 by sending burn at a man and crashing in. Desire can just sit there and hole up on cards until the turn they beat you, and that’s the deck against which you need a clock the most. Against Affinity you’re going to need to draw one of your eight burn spells, and even then that might not get you through an Enforcer (and Bauble, though an artifact, helps making your Tarmogoyf initially big enough to battle with things like Frogmite). The reason we ran Seal of Fire was in essence because it was an enchantment; the 2 damage one-mana investment was clearly and obviously nice but in and of itself it’s not really an Extended-quality card, and certainly it’s never the type of thing I just pump my fist to draw.
Second, it’s actually incredibly useful, in a deck with twelve sack-lands – especially one where 1) you cannot manipulate the deck and 2) one card makes a GIANT difference, whether it’s finding a crucial land, or drawing a burn spell or creature instead of a land, or needing to have specifically the card Tidehollow Sculler, or whatever – to be able to know the top card of your deck. This comes up frequently on the third turn, since you’ve usually exhausted your one-drops and actually have a spare turn to have the option to crack a land or not. Bauble in these circumstances can provide valuable information on whether or not you should sack it immediately, and can allow you to plan your next turn.
The first of these reasons is major, and the second, minor, but together with the fact that the “insanely good card” density versus the “wow that is mediocre” density of your deck is now shifted heavily in insanity’s favor mean that I think you should try the Bauble out. I was hoping to get in several-game sets with it, but the LRT here stops running at midnight and I very much needed to get out and get home. Still, in the admittedly tiny sample of two games I played against Desire with it, it seemed extremely good.
Of note: I kept the mix of two Molten Rain and two Oblivion Ring just because of general-use purposes, and the Teeg because I cut Stifles and felt there should be a nod to Desire somewhere, without having to accommodate the deck to a single Blue card. Both Rain and Oblivion Ring are bad sometimes and you never want to draw multiples, but can occasionally be totally ridiculous and also get you out of binds (c.f. a Jitte from Faeries, hitting Footsteps’ only Black source). I cut a land because of the “Comer principle” of cantrips reducing the need to play as many land, and because Breeding Pool was rather sh***y anyway. Feel free to tinker with these, of course; the main thing is just the improvement of quality of having fewer sh***y spells, plus Tarmogoyf regularly not dying to a Helix on turn 2 and just clocking better generally, and the occasional opportunity to vary the contents of your deck at no charge by shuffling chaff away in favor of something better (and, I suppose, information about what your opponent is going to topdeck sometimes, though let’s be honest, that is almost never going to matter).
Anyway etc. I have not gone crazy, I promise.
—
Stuart:
Ethersworn Canonist could replace Teeg versus Grapeshot Storm maybe? Suffers a bit from dying to Lotus/Grapeshot but otherwise is pretty good.
I think Bauble is okay, but I’m not sure just Watchwolf or the like isn’t better. I guess I’ll try them out.
I played some games with Stifle and it didn’t seem worth it. I think you need to want Threads, really. Searching up a Blue on turn 1 was often painful on my mana even after I got a one-cost Stone Rain.
I’m also in the anything > Figure camp. Getting it to 4/4 is so hard, and I don’t feel that 2/2 is that much better than any other old 2/2 anyway.
—
From Me:
The problem with Canonist is that it really does slow you down as well, particularly if you have a double-Flames hand and can just goldfish-race them.
—
From Marijn:
Hey, I’m Zac, I like wacky ideas. Mishra’s Bauble in Zoo… who would have thought! I don’t like it, that’s for sure. I could see myself needing that one extra damage on turn 4/5 and then drawing Bauble instead with the next card being a Mogg Fanatic. No thanks. I think I rather have some random one offs that can win games by itself if drawn at the right time.
Marijn
—
From Me:
… but what if you need that extra 3 damage on turn 4/5, and on your third turn instead of something that gets you closer you just have some dumb like Stifle.
I mean, I could get down with more Mogg Fanatics, or whatever. I am just saying do me a small small favor and play it 6 games or so and then tell me it’s utterly terrible. Can’t playtest today, am sick, but I’ll be trying this and other (better) things out soon!
—
From Frank:
Hey all.
I just finalized a couple 75-card lists and sideboarding plans and I figured I might as well share it with you. I aim to test Zoo, Affinity, TEPS, and Swans against each other after sideboard.
The current results of these decks before boarding are (if my tally is correct):
Zoo-Affinity 5-19
Zoo-TEPS 25-15
Zoo-Swans 12-8
TEPS-Affinity 9-3
TEPS-Swans 8-4
Affinity-Swans 5-9
However, it is quite likely that these matchups will be different post-board.
My 75-card lists including sideboarding plans are:
AFFINITY DECKLIST
(Lands =20)
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Glimmervoid
1 City of Brass
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Ancient Den
4 Seat of Synod
(Creatures =24)
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Arcbound Worker
4 Frogmite
2 Myr Enforcer
3 Ornithopter
4 Master of Etherium
3 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Heap Doll
(Spells =16)
4 Chromatic Star
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
3 Springleaf Drum
1 Terrarion
(Sideboard = 15)
3 Slaughter Pact
3 Thoughtseize
1 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod’s Crypt
SIDEBOARDING WITH AFFINITY
(VS Zoo)
+3 Slaughter Pact
+3 Thoughtseize
-3 Tidehollow Sculler
-1 Heap Doll
-1 Cranial Plating
-1 Frogmite
(VS TEPS)
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Tidehollow Sculler
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Thorn of Amethyst
-1 Heap Doll
-2 Myr Enforcer
-2 Master of Etherium
-1 Ornithopter
-1 Blinkmoth Nexus
(VS Swans)
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Tidehollow Sculler
+3 Slaughter Pact
-2 Myr Enforcer
-2 Master of Etherium
-1 Ornithopter
-1 Arcbound Worker
-1 Blinkmoth Nexus
ZOO DECKLIST
(Lands = 22)
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mountain
1 Mishra’s Bauble
(Creatures = 24)
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Kird Ape
3 Mogg Fanatic
1 Figure of Destiny
1 Savannah Lions
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Gaddock Teeg
(Spells=14)
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tribal Flames
2 Molten Rain
1 Seal of Fire
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Stifle
(Sideboard=15)
2 Stifle
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Molten Rain
4 Kataki
1 Shatterstorm
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
SIDEBOARDING WITH ZOO
(VS TEPS)
+2 Stifle
+2 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Molten Rain
-1 Tarmogoyf
-1 Seal of Fire
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Mogg Fanatic
(VS Affinity)
+4 Kataki
+1 Shatterstorm
+2 Oblivion Ring
+1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
-1 Stifle
-2 Molten Rain
-1 Gaddock Teeg
-1 Savannah Lions
-1 Figure of Destiny
-1 Seal of Fire
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
(VS Swans)
+1 Kataki
+2 Oblivion Ring
+1 Molten Rain
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Stifle
-1 Seal of Fire
-1 Mogg Fanatic
-1 Tarmogoyf
-2 Lightning Helix
-1 Figure of Destiny
SWANS D ECKLIST
(Lands=24)
3 Chrome Mox
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Breeding Pool
2 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
2 Island
1 Snow-covered Island
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Forest
1 Snow-covered Forest
1 Mountain
1 Gemstone Caverns
(Creatures=10)
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll
1 Eternal Witness
4 Wall of Roots
1 Tarmogoyf
(Spells=26)
4 Ponder
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Remand
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Repeal
1 Recollect
1 Conflagrate
1 Firespout
1 Condescend
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Stifle
(Sideboard=15)
3 Stifle
1 Trickbind
2 Pact of Negation
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Shattering Spree
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Magma Jet
1 Firespout
SIDEBOARDING WITH SWANS
(VS TEPS)
+3 Stifle
+1 Trickbind
+1 Pact of Negation
+1 Muddle the Mixture
-1 Engineered Explosives
-1 Tarmogoyf
-1 Firespout
-1 Wall of Roots
-2 Repeal
(VS Affinity)
+1 Shatterstorm
+1 Hurkyl’s Recall
+1 Fracturing Gust
+1 Magma Jet
-1 Condescend
-1 Stifle
-1 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Remand
(VS Zoo)
+1 Firespout
+1 Magma Jet
+1 Kitchen Finks
+1 Threads of Disloyalty
-1 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Condescend
-1 Remand
-1 Thirst for Knowledge
TEPS DECKLIST
(Land s=20)
2 Dreadship Reef
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
2 Island
3 Steam Vents
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Chrome Mox
(Core cards=32)
4 Mind’s Desire
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Ponder
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
(Remaning slots=8)
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Remand
1 Grapeshot
1 Plunge into Darkness
1 Pentad Prism
1 Ad Nauseam
(Sideboard=15)
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Repeal
2 Firespout
2 Magma Jet
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Gigadrowse
1 Pact of Negation
3 Stifle
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ignorant Bliss
1 Echoing Truth
SIDEBOARDING WITH TEPS
(VS Affinity)
+1 Hurkyl’s Recall
+1 Firespout
+1 Repeal
+2 Magma Jet
+1 Slaughter Pact
-1 Plunge into Darkness
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Remand
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Pentad Prism
-1 Ad Nauseam
(VS Zoo)
+1 Repeal
+2 Firespout
+2 Magma Jet
+1 Slaughter Pact
-1 Plunge into Darkness
-2 Desperate Ritual
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 Remand
(VS Swans)
+1 Slaughter Pact
+1 Pact of Negation
+1 Gigadrowse
-1 Grapeshot
-1 Desperate Ritual
-1 Chrome Mox
I don’t really feel like justifying all these choices. It’s late already… If you have specific questions about why I play only X copies of card Y etc., ask away.
Frank
—
From Me:
Did some post-sideboard testing today. Frank, you hit the nail on the head with Duegar Hedge-Mage; Wow is that guy insane. He also lets you remove some of the narrower cards in the board, which is nice.
Re: the Red Deck, it might just be possible to like play your first turn guy, play a Kird Ape or Mogg Fanatic eventually, and win with Jittes after board. I assume they have to Ritual out a Blood Moon or else play it second turn, meaning they either blow their hand or you get a second guy. If you get a Tarmogoyf, you don’t really need to play more spells, and Jitte trumps their deck. Also Sculler or whatever. I am not really thinking it’s something worth adapting around. Bring in our Jittes and Hedge-Mages just to have spells to cast, and keep in your O-Rings in case they blow their hand. It’s probably not a good matchup but I’m not scared of it.
I settled on the following hypothetical “maindeck” before considering sideboard choices:
4 B Mire
4 W Foothills
4 W Heath
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Grounds
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Mountain
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Isamaru
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Mishra’s Bauble
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Molten Rain
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Incinerate
4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
I am actually really, really confident in this maindeck. I went down from 4 Baubles first because of Breeding Pool. I will be the first to say I f***ing hate the card Breeding Pool. However, I think Stifle is too important from the board not to play it; it’s the only card good against both major combo decks, and helps against all versions of Desire. I thought about just running more Canonists and overloading them, but the thing is they are bringing in Firespouts and/or Martyrs of Ashes which are actually kind of bad for us. Stifle lets them Wrath our board, but we can stop them once they blow their hand and rebuild. Also, if we’re going to just kill them or whatever, we can stifle a Martyr activation or a land. I don’t think we have the room to board in a land in the combo matchups, so I just maindecked it. In matchups where we don’t need Stifle, though, if we’re keeping in 2 Baubles especially (which has been really, really good so far) I think we can side out Breeding Pool, as the deck really only needs 21 land and Breeding Pool is a deal-me-three-damage Forest so much of the time. I actually like 2 Baubles even more post board when you’re looking for specific cards, like Kataki or Stifle or Molten Rain, because of that “peek at your library first turn” action that comes up a fair amount. I have no idea what the percentage of that actually mattering is, but it’s won me at least one of today’s games against Affinity and seems good on principle. It also allowed a Tarmogoyf to survive a Firespout against post-board Desire that turned out to be very vital.
Anyway, that was the hypothetical maindeck. 3 Baubles seemed wrong so I put in an Incinerate, which is never bad and 5 is still not too many to really overload on three damage spells. It also makes the two Baubles you have better because there’s another instant to draw, though that is obviously not going to come up a lot.
The hypothetical sideboard, given the tremendous beating that was Duegar Hedge Mage, was:
2 Duegar Hedge-Mage (Affinity, NLU, Mirror)
1 Oblivion Ring (Mirror, NLU, Swans, Astral Slide, That Red Ritual Deck)
3 Stifle (Combo)
4 Kataki War’s Wage (Affinity, 2-3 for Chrome Mox decks)
2 Gaddock Teeg (Mind’s Desire, 1 for Cryptic Command decks)
1 Ethersworn Canonist (Mind’s Desire)
2 Umezawa’s Jitte (NLU, Mirror)
It is possible that Canonist is pushing it, and should just be Jitte, since they are going to want to kill our guys anyway. I wanted to leave out extremely narrow cards like Shatterstorm because if you could beat Affinity with a minimalist configuration, why go further than you have to?
I have not played a game versus NLU so I am not going to hypothesize a sideboard. However, against Mind’s Desire, I’d hypothesize that you’re -2 O-Ring -1 Incinerate -3 Mogg Fanatic +3 Stifle +3 Mess With You Guys. Lightning Helix is not the best card against them but it gives you goldfish range, and the +3 life can actually be very relevant versus Grapeshots and Tendrils. Sometimes your only h ope is to hold it in your hand and cast it in response to their lethal spell, It’s not like they go infinite with Desire every game. Fanatic is redundant and is dying to their sweepers, so R: Deal 1 is not my idea of a good time.
Against Affinity, I went -1 Fanatic, -2 Molten Rain, -1 Breeding Pool, -1 Incinerate, -1 Gaddock Teeg, -1 Isamaru. +2 Duegar Assailant +1 ORing +4 Kataki. I am not positive about taking out Isamaru and Fanatic but they just seemed like the worst cards. I imagine you could take out 2 Bauble but I like drawing Kataki, and both Fanatic and Isamaru quickly become obsolete because the board is clogged with bigger guys. Plus, I think Engineered Explosives might actually be an insane Affinity sideboard card and this makes you less vulnerable to it; 12 one-drops is still plenty.
At any rate that is kind of a moot point, because I played 5 games with Affinity having Seals of Fire/Thoughtseize and 5 games with their having Slaughter Pact, and I won ten-oh. 10-0. I mulliganned to five twice and it did not matter. I am sure the actual numbers are something like 80%, because he was never drawing Myr Enforcers which are important to gain initiative, and very rarely had Ravager, but the matchup still feels like a blowout.
First of all, Duegar Hedge-Mage is outright balls to the wall nuts. The very first game we played he had a Seal of Fire for my Kataki and I Hedge-Maged both that and a Cranial Plating(he kept in 3) and well boys, that sure was. Kataki came down next turn and I mean. Seal of Fire is pretty loose anyway. Slaughter Pact is better because it’s more generally applicable, can be used relevantly on Tarmogoyfs, and of course does not have to come down early, but you’re still just begging to walk into an opportune O Ring on Drum/Hedgemage on a land and That Is.
The reason the matchup is so lopsided post-board has to do with their means of bending over backwards to try and deal with Kataki. In particular, all the ways of doing so are colored spells. Seal of Fire Time Walks them early, so even if they do kold your Kataki you’ve got a guy on the ground beating down before they can do anything. Seal and Thoughtseize, even if they can cast them, mess up their opening hands because each spell in their deck makes each other spell exponentially better. And because colored mana is a limiting factor, when they are holding like Thoughtcast, Master, and Thoughtseize, they are not going to be casting multiple spells in a turn. Against Zoo, that hiccup is all the difference in the world. The other thing is that all of the sudden you have five ways to Desert Twister and 4 ways to get almost there (Tribal Flames) in addition to your Katakis, and then your Scullers also take the best threat that is waiting to come down. Affinity is really good at producing three good threats, but you’re all of the sudden capable of neutralizi ng about two of them relatively easily. The other you can race, or just produce a Kataki and make it no longer relevant.
I am basically convinced that the best possible Affinity plan involves running 4 Springleaf Drums, keeping in the one-drops, and playing 4 Umezawa’s Jittes. They are artifacts that kill Kataki, so they don’t slow you down, and they win the game by themselves. See, something like Moonglove Extract is a possibility, but just one-for-oneing Kataki while gaining negative tempo isn’t going to be good enough. Jitte deals with two Katakis and beats Zoo all by itself. It doesn’t take care of the turn 2 Kataki but neither does Seal half the time because, I mean, you only have 4 turn-1 red sources barring Ornithopter, in which case you have ten (if you go Glimmervoid/Seal of Fire/SacGlimmervoid I am going to be a very happy Zoo player). Engineered Explosives would probably be savage as well. Just swap Platings for Jittes basically. Doing this concedes to an early Kataki but I think that is a risk you can take. Bending over backwards trying to fight it doesn’t work, either. Also, if this sideboard plan proves to get the post-board Affinity/Zoo matchup even 25% in Affinity’s favor, it might result in my playing Robots at this pro tour. Right now, though, I love me a Zoo animal.
The good news for us is that we don’t need Shatterstorm in the slightest.
Anyway, thanks Frank for the Hedge-mage technology. I think the only thing that matters in the Zoo mirror is Jitte; we could even run like Forge-Tender or something. How’s everything else coming? I still need to test some NLU, as I don’t have a good list. That one Marijn sent out like two weeks ago was not beating anything 🙂
—
From Jan:
If you want to win the Zoo mirror (i.e. the most important matchup) I would start by removing U and B cards, just play one U and one B land and add molten rains. When testing RDW I was 5-1 against Sculler Zoo and 1-5 against No Sculler Zoo, mainly because of mana problems with sculler zoo.
If I would play Zoo in the hypothetical PT tomorrow I wouldn’t play Sculler (main), although it must be said that I didn’t test Zoo as much as you guys so I might be wrong.
—
From Me:
So, I’ve been doing a lot of testing with Zoo, obviously, since it’s very likely what I’m going to run. The thing is, I like Molten Rain randomly stealing games but it’s not that you specifically need to kill a land; sometimes, you just need some random disruption. On a whim I decided to try Blightning in that slot, since it wasn’t the blowing up of a land specifically that did it, and I’ve been very pleased with the results:
-Obviously, three is a lot more than two.
-It grows Tarmogoyf by a lot more, since you always have a land in the bin.
-Against Storm decks, oftentimes their storm count, not mana, is a limiting factor.
-Whereas Molten Rain is unreal sh** against Chrome Mox decks, Blightning is actually gas. Reason being, obviously, that their hand size is smaller due to 1-for-0ing themselves, and you can get the business spells. This has made a huge difference against Swans and Footsteps, because frequently after all their setup their hand is like the Chain or Footsteps they need to beat you, and not much else
-It makes your best two-drop, Sculler, even better by a mile, since you can just clear out all of their business.
-After taking out Stifle, your Desire matchup, while positive, got a little worse. This brings those percentage points back up there.
-It’s much less terrible in multiples.
-Against Zoo, it’s actually really good, as you just trade your early guys and gain advantage that way.
I am almost positive the deck I am playing at the Pro Tour is going to look very similar to:
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Isamaru
4 Sculler
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tribal Flames
4 Lighting Helix
3 Blightning
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Mishra’s Bauble
1 Incinerate
The Normal 22 Lands
3 Stifle
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Duegar Hedge Mage
4 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Oblivion Ring
Might be true in the mirror re Sculler; I think it’s completely bonkers in all other matchups, though, and I think there’s tons of variance in the mirror anyway. Have only played ten mirror games though so I’d trust your opinion more than mine 😉
—
From Frank:
I am still torn between Swans and Zoo.
For those who like matchup results, I do have the following compiled (including my own results and some of yours):
Zoo – Affinity : 5-19 before board, 13-3 after board
Zoo – TEPS: 25-15 before board, 6-8 after board
Zoo- Swans: 12-8 before board, 6-6 after board
TEPS – Affinity: 3-9 before board, 5-3 after board
Affinity – Zoo: 5-9 before board, 2-6 after board
TEPS-Swans: 8-4 before board, 2-10 after board
In a metagame of 25% Zoo, 25% Affinity, 25% TEPS, and 25% Swans, these decks have an expected match win percentage vs the field of:
Swans: 63%
Zoo: 57%
TEPS: 43%
Affinity: 37%
Blightning is interesting, although it is quite bad vs Hulk (they don’t need to find an Ideas Unbound first anymore) 😉
Raph Levy had a Zoo deck with many one drops, 18 land and 4 Chrome Mox, Woolly Thoctar (nice with Mox), Dark Confidant (which makes sense if you run Chrome Mox), and no random cards like Oblivion Ring or Molten Rain. Perhaps Chrome Mox is worth another look?
Frank
—
From Stuart:
Your logic makes plenty of sense. It does seem a lot better than rain against storm combo. I’m pretty sure that I’ll run this deck too, after playing 18 rounds of Constructed with the same control deck for WoW, aggro sounds nice.
—
From Stuart:
Played some more games with zoo. Blightning plus sculler was very good, but I guess 3 Blightning is correct. Hated the Breeding Pool and maybe a Hallowed Fountain is better. Having 4 lands and Sculler/Helix was rather annoying. In general, Pool is really bad with Sculler.
Bauble seemed fine, but with only two I didn’t draw it much, and it is hard to judge if it is worth playing.
…
So, twenty thousand plus words in and our intrepid heroes seem well on their way to finalizing an interesting, innovative Zoo deck. But wait… it’s mid-October, and there’s nary an Elf deck to be found! To understand what happened, we’ll have to go back in time just a couple of days or so to an innocuous little email from a certain M. Lybaert. Join us next week to watch firsthand as the Elves! deck that would go on to take PT: Berlin by storm blossoms from an offhand curiosity to a veritable, format-defining powerhouse.
Also, let me know what you think about this series in the forums. It’s long, and it’s arduous, but I’m hoping you’re finding it informative. It’s without doubt the most intense Magic-related project I’ve ever worked on, but I hope y’all are finding it rewarding in the end.
Until next week…
Zac.