Since Block Constructed season has just officially gotten underway, I’ve decided to split this article. The first half will be me finishing the Designing Decks piece I started last week. The second half will be some pondering on TSP Block including bits and pieces of information from the first couple of PTQs and GP: Montreal thoughts. That’s a lot to tackle, so let’s get started!
Before we start with Step 6 and continue on, there are a few little topics of note I’d like to address from the last article.
When determining how large the core will be for the deck, aim for a specific number of cards that you want on your first listing for non-mana sources. I like to think in between the numbers of twelve to twenty, depending on how many mana cards I’m estimating I’ll play, unless you have a strategy that encompasses the entire deck. This is so with certain decks, like control, you cut down the fat for what you think is important or figure out a way to compromise to get everything you think is important into the first cut.
The idea behind the process isn’t to necessarily limit the deck, but limit what you think is valuable in the deck. All too often I saw people cut important cards from Goblins in Extended and Vintage, because they never bothered to stop and think why the cards were there in the first place. The idea of listing the most valuable cards and enablers first is so you think long and hard about messing with the numbers.
Speaking of numbers, I got a good question from an e-mailer about how to determine the number of each core card. This is an interesting question, because many times you can have a very important card in the deck, but one that you might not want to see in multiples, or always be able to use right away. Other times it’s an enabler that has a limited amount of versatility, so it doesn’t necessarily help the deck as much as an already included card. When people want cards 5-8 in a deck, you want to figure out how many effective copies of a card you want.
The way I use to get my initial core numbers is the greed method. I take about as many cards as I guess I want, and add one to the number. In some cases, where it feels like a zero or four card, I’ll go with maxing it out. It’s not particularly elegant, but it’s a great starting point when you get to the tweaking phase of the deck. It’s rare when you’ll be on the money with these initial projections, so don’t get discouraged if you find you’ve been off by any significant degree.
The other snippet of information I want to share is how I craft the first iteration of a manabase. In a way this may be the simplest of all the steps,, since you simply are looking for functional playability rather than streamlining. What I’ll do is figure out the average mana cost of the cards in my deck, and then figure out roughly how many lands I’ll need to hit that number without missing a land drop along the way. Color considerations are handled by the old fashioned weighing of total color symbols and slanting the mana. Remember that this is the basic manabase; you don’t need to be spot on about anything yet.
After the manabase, we move onto the addition of support and filler cards. You may be asking yourself what exactly "support" and "filler" refers too, so let me help you out. To me, support cards are cards that aren’t going to win the game outright for you, but instead are going to help you survive until you can. Cards like Duress, Remand, and removal of all sorts are basic support cards; they aren’t going to win the game for you, but they buy you time to achieve your plan. Another way to look at them is as cards that supplement your core cards by either dealing with situations they can’t handle, or simply by making them more powerful over the long run. The idea behind adding the correct type of support spells to cover situations that your plan can’t handle.
For example, Trix generally is going to destroy aggro decks via its main combo. Gaining twenty life and being able to Force of Will anything particularly nasty eliminates almost all creature removal as a support necessity. This is why many of the Trix builds only ran one or two Firestorm to eliminate annoyances like Elvish Lyrist and so forth. You don’t need that kind of support card, because the core of your deck already solves the problem for you. So Force of Will and Duress are going to do the heavy lifting on the support front, because the deck attacks control decks… and, more importantly, opposing Trix decks weapons. Being able to stop the other guy from resolving Necropotence is a pretty big boost, unless all you want is to play a coin flip match.
Meanwhile, filler isn’t really a true designation for any cards in particular, but rather a name I use to describe cantrips or otherwise useless cards you find in some decks. Usually, due to constraints in the format, there’s just a lack of good core and support cards to build around certain plans. Dragonstorm (and the Storm deck Billy Moreno posted a few days ago) are good examples of that. Instead of running additional search or fast mana, none exist, so the decks were filled with cheap ways to cycle and make storm.
At this point you have to figure out roughly how long you need to survive, and how much control you need over the board to successfully execute your plan. That will determine how long many and what kind of support cards you’ll be likely to add to the deck. For aggressive strategies the difference between a core, support and filler card may end up being minimal. When looking at loose strategies like Sligh, or a deck where roughly every card is in a similar power range, then it’s merely a question of efficiency. However, if you compare a deck like Trix to Dralnu, two decks with their own specific plans and differing fundamental turns, well then support becomes a major issue.
After adding the support and filler, then comes retooling the manabase again. This won’t be a final version, but it should end up close to it unless you end up with a major retooling the deck. Now that you have the support and filler cards added in, it’s possible to calculate out a much more accurate colored mana requirement for your land/manabase. I’ve already stated my basics to building mana earlier, by now I’ve made so many I just do it by ear.
The biggest thing is typically adding any "special" land that isn’t going to come down and immediately tap for a color/s that you need. Lands like Llanowar Reborn, Library of Alexandria and other lands require special consideration when building the base. Cards that are CIPT need special consideration because of the bearing they have on your mana curve.
For example, if you have few one- or two-drops in your deck, or perhaps just a cantrip or removal spell – something that retains its value even if cast later in the game – then it isn’t quite as big a deal adding such lands without huge debate. The issue will only come up when drawing them and using them as the land drop for that turn. For more aggressive decks, like the G/W decks in the current block format, it takes a lot more thought to use Llanowar Reborn and risk the missing of a drop because of its Comes Into Play Tapped clause. It becomes a balancing act of running enough normal land while taking into account Reborn’s status as a mana producer.
On the other hand, cards like Horizon Canopy and Edge of Autumn can be used to justify slightly more land than you’d normally run, because you can effectively cycle them when they’re not needed for mana production. Once again, creating a final iteration of a manabase requires balance more than all else.
The three basic rules for optimal manabases are:
1. Being sure you always hit enough land drops from turn 1 onward, until your core cards come online.
2. Being able to create the correct colors consistently.
3. Balancing the number of colored mana sources and lands, so you may limit mulligans due to mana issues against topdecks of land later in the game.
These three rules overlap to some degree, but the idea is to run a number of lands that successfully enable your core strategy in whichever colors you’ve chosen, as well as allowing for the maximum strength in topdecks and mulligans. Everyone has their own rules for building manabases, and if you want a truly in-depth analysis, I suggest reading Richard Feldman series of articles on the subject.
At this point, you have a maindeck! Congratulations are in order, and it’s now time to kick the tires and take the deck around the block a couple of times. At this point you’ll want to play some games against the popular decks in the field, just to see how you hold up. If the deck’s results are even mildly encouraging, then move onto the next step: building a general sideboard.
Sideboard options are next on the list, and once again I’ll be going over the basics. Typically, sideboards are created to help out matches in which you aren’t favored, which means one of the most important issues is figuring out what cards are truly effective against what you’re aiming at. This is a pretty subjective process, and you could write a whole article on it, so I’ll give you a quick summary.
Typically when you create a sideboard, you can create one with very narrow answers (known as "hate cards") that pick on one specific archetype or deck, or you can pick cards that have less influence over the outcome of against a single deck but can be used in a variety of matches. Ideally when creating this type of board, you want the mix that provides you the most positive expected value from the card slots. At this point, unless you have a very good idea of what deck you’re going to struggle against, it’s best to keep your cards flexible until you know just how bad game 1 is, and what’s coming in games 2 and 3 against you.
However, one of the biggest issues people have with sideboarding isn’t picking the hate cards incorrectly. Rather, they have the biggest issues with deciding what to board out of the maindeck in each match. A common mistake would be boarding out so many of the enabling cards that the core of the deck suffers as a result. This is part of the reason why I group portions of my deck together, so I can quickly reference and refresh myself on what cards are going to be untouchable*, and what ones to quickly give consideration. The majority of the time you need to leave the overall synergy and mana curve in the deck intact. This is why building sideboards in a vacuum sucks; you need to figure out how many dead or sub-optimal cards in the deck you truly have in each match.
* Obviously not an iron-clad rule, as there’s always that one deck or situation where it’s actually correct to board out some of your most valuable cards. It’s just not all that common.
Another is incorrectly analyzing what the true threat of the deck is, and boarding to beat that rather than its true goal. This is especially true with the last couple of years of combo decks, but goes back even further. Aiming hate at win cards like Brain Freeze or Tendrils of Agony is pointless when you allow the enablers to run free, since the combo deck will have free reign to find a support card to beat your hate and win the game. Even before the storm mechanic, aiming at the win condition in a High Tide or Trix deck was beyond pointless because of the mana and card advantage it would gain in the meantime before even attempting to win the game.
Another mistake, which has slowly been reduced in frequency thanks to more available information and MWS/MTGO for testing tools, is adding cards you couldn’t fit into the maindeck into the sideboard. You’ll find this a lot in Wish boards, where it is justifiable to an extent. However, often it’s simply a mark of a lazy deckbuilder to run 15 different one-of cards in the board. Yes, the small amount of versatility you gain from having answers that are ever so slightly better than others in the board in an isolated situation will probably win a few games. Odds are, though, if you’d cut a couple of those minimal impact cards and actually have a four-of for a bad match-up you’ll get a lot more wins from those slots in the long run.
Many times you’ll see people run cards that are "generally good" in the sideboard, but have no real reasons to be there. For example, take Food Chain Goblins in Extended during the time Tinker reigned supreme (or its time as a viable deck in Vintage). I saw many players boarding Naturalize as a catch-all for the field while still being good against big artifact decks. It was a card that would trade with a bombtastic artifact, and impact maybe 15-20% of the games you played. Artifact Mutation, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as flexible… but if it resolved, it would make a much more significant impact by speeding up your clock by 2-3 turns. This mattered in nearly every game you resolved the card, because you always were in a race against their mana acceleration and topdecks.
If you’re building a board and play it in smaller tournaments; or plan on playing the same deck at multiple tourneys (say, a PTQ season), then make sure to ask yourself a question:
Am I actually using all of the cards in my sideboard?
This happens a lot. People will play decks in a changing metagame for a month or more, and keep cards they’ve boarded maybe one time in the board just because they can. Because, you know, that one Red deck is out there that’s going to be totally hosed by that Circle of Protection: Red you’ve been packing since Day 1. Any day now…
There’s a difference between playing the field that you expect and playing the field that actually shows up. As long as you know what cards worked in what match and what didn’t, don’t be afraid to keep a twenty-card board until you show up to the tourney site. Try out different boarding selections in testing, but please keep the records separate. Nothing is more annoying than asking your buddy about his match results and finding out he can’t remember the exact board plan, or when he made the switch.
Testing is just what it says; you make a gauntlet of the best decks (and popular decks) and play your deck against them. If you’ve got the time, try to play ten-match sets. If you don’t, just do as many as you feel comfortable with. Prioritize testing against the decks you’ll see the most, and make sure your opponent is comfortable with the opposing deck if it’s complicated. A great way to come up with flawed results is to see only what results you’ll get against the bad players.
Try to play more sideboarded games than pre-boarded, as this will more accurately test under tournament conditions. The only real difference there should be between tournament and test games should be the allowing of some take backs; or at the bare minimum going back over the lost games. Keep a running track of games you won normally, and ones that you would’ve won assuming optimal play. This gives you a better idea of what the deck is capable of. Just don’t go overboard and assume you’ll necessarily play that well in the actual tournament. Keeping a split set of records can also help show if you have the requisite skills to play the deck at a sufficient level.
Finally comes tweaking, which I’m not going to fully flesh out here since you could write a whole series of articles on playing with ratios and determining what card numbers to change. Basically, at this stage you know the deck will work to a degree, and the goal is to tune it one more time to come closer to meeting your goals. Cards that may or may not of worked get switched, the board gets a makeover for the cards that weren’t quite so good, the manabases get reworked, etc. A lot of this just comes from math, and feeling it out from playing the deck plus match results, so I’m just going to end on the note that the greatest freedom you have is making your own decisions.
And that’s it for now! I’m sure I’ll revisit some of these topics in more detail down the road, but let’s end it here with some credits.
A few of the more notable / underrated articles from which I’ve learned a lot, as far as deckbuilding goes:
How Many People Get It? The Over/Under Is Five, by Jon Becker
The Process of Choosing your Deck, by Richard Feldman
Basic Rogue Deck Design: Natural Strategy, Anti-Strategy, and Strategy Superiority, by Mike Flores
The Way of the Sideboard, by Rob Dougherty
Learn How To Sideboard, Dammit!, by Geordie Tait
Block Thoughts
Josh S: Ah, at least this abomination got me off thinking how lost I am for Block season.
Zac Hill: Tell me about it.
Zac Hill: This Block season makes no damn sense.
This article will be submitted before I know who won Grand Prix: Montreal, but I’m looking at the Top 15 decks right now and my honest reaction is…. What?
Let’s go one at a time, shall we? Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, the Resident Genius, played Wild Pair Slivers, whose biggest additions to the maindeck were Foresee replacing Harmonize and Take Possession as "‘big spell to resolve in case I don’t see Pair." This is a deck Sean McKeown just called a laughable concept last week, and it’s top ranked after the Swiss rounds. Now although I didn’t share quite that level of disdain, I sure didn’t think it would get to the semifinals of the GP after soundly thrashing a U/B Teachings deck piloted by the player of the year in the quarterfinals. More like Top 16, or something. That sideboard is adorable, though.
Gabriel Schwartz and Andre Coimbra lived the dream and played the Kavu Predator – Fiery Justice – Grove of the Burnwillows deck every damn person on MWS and in the MTGO tournament practice room had been throwing around. Other than not running the full set of Griffin Guide, the deck is pretty loaded to mash up the Tarmogoyf mirror. A full set of maindeck Dead/Gone, Temporal Isolation, and Fiery Justice is going to take out practically everything short of Quagnoth. Coimbra has also apparently been hacking into my mind and playing a full set of Might of Old Krosa which not only boost the size of the Goyf, but tend to be good when you play against decks with Tendrils of Corruption (or the same creatures as you) round after round.
The most interesting part of Schwartz’s deck has to be Extirpate and Dodecapod in the sideboard. Dodecapod completely trumps the issue of slow starts against Black decks where you simply milk one or two creatures, where there’s a real risk of getting hit by Haunting Hymn while holding back men and pump. Not to mention the complete annihilation of any Smallpox Black decks, which although popular at the PTQ level hasn’t seemed to of translated over to any GP success.
Shouta Yasooka ran a rather standard looking U/B Teachings build updated with FS, and with tiny splashes from a maindeck Plains and his mana artifacts for Pull from Eternity (and to pay the flashback cost on Strangling Soot). Venser, Shaper Savant makes an appearance to help out the Mystical Teachings engine, giving him access to a way to trump Mystic Enforcer, storage land mana advantage in the mirrors, and a few extra counters. Take Possession was the big winner this weekend. It was a card I mentioned with real potential that I thought would show up, but I had overlooked the simple fact that the Teachings mirror is twenty turns of staring at one another before an actual game develops. Tombstalker also goes with the theme of having a cheap 5/5 flyer to drop later in the game, one that also takes always Tarmogoyf food from the opponent.
What’s really interesting about the deck is that it’s so close to his deck from Strasbourg. He’s dumped Draining Whelk (okay, "moved it to the board"), Dralnu, Sudden Death, Phyrexian Totem, and cut back on Mystical Teachings for similar but more effective cards from Future Sight. His deck actually resembles more of a draw-go type of strategy rather than complete toolbox plan of other Teachings decks. If you look closely, you’ll notice he’s got the full set of Cancel along with Delay and Venser. This gives him eight counters compared to the four to six most Teachings decks were running, while in the Top 15, Paul Cheon, Olivier Ruel, and Luis Scott-Vargas ran next to zero. Only Kenji Tsumura could run as many counters as Yasooka had in the control mirror, and he was Mono-Blue Pickles!
Speaking of Kenji’s deck, a straight Pickles deck like this amuses me no end. With Ancestral Visions, he can invest one mana and get the same card production other people are spending four on for Careful Consideration. Not to mention the odds of him losing the fight over when it resolves will be entirely his choosing. Consider that the deck features Willbender, Venser, Delay, and Cancel, and 28 lands. If he wants to pick a fight over when the card resolves, I’m going to bet on Kenji every time. Especially when you consider that he can slam down an end of turn Venser or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as a test spell. Then, post-board, he can use the full set of Willbender, making each morph a potential landmine, along with a few extra counters, and Take Possession and Aeon Chronicler to boot.
Oh, and he can just lock you down with Brine Elemental instead of needing to waste time taking you down from twenty. Truly a brutal deck for Teachings to play against.
As for his aggressive match, he’s got the same Vesuvan Shapeshifters people are packing in the sideboard; along with Riftwing Cloudskate, which is a beating against G/W decks; along with Serrated Arrows, to take down weenies and slowly drain G/W’s behemoths. The counters are still fine here, considering that the threats will be dropping one at a time. Still, it’s a surprise to only see two Snapback to help buy time against an aggressive deck that he can’t really trade with via his own men. All and all, I love the deck.
Did anyone not have a G/W deck that was four to six cards off Celso Zampere Jr.’s deck? It was one of those "don’t talk about it" moments, as nobody on the Internet even mentioned the possibility of a G/W or G/W/x deck being really viable, even though it was obvious once you got down to testing. To his credit, he came prepared to stomp the Goyf mirror with a full set of Griffin Guide, Temporal Isolation, and a few Thrill of the Hunt, all maindeck. The quad Llanowar Reborn is another nice touch, as some of the builds floating on MTGO failed to run full sets. Not much to say, other than it’s a very efficient beatdown machine that mashes red decks and has pretty solid matches across the board.
Koutarou Ootsuka represented the G/U Shifter archetype well, although I’m amazed that merely the addition of Foresee, Venser, and Take Possession brought the deck up that far. I really didn’t expect this deck to be incredibly viable in the face of so many Goyf and Teachings decks, but results speak for themselves. The main strategy hasn’t changed from the Yokohama builds: you just want to slow the game down until your powerful Shapeshifter, Brine Elemental, and Thelonite Hermit can take over the board. Also, Penumbra Spider!
Finally, we get to a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade deck! Paul Cheon and Luis-Scott Vargas piloted the same 75, and both ended up with high finishes. Other than Korlash and Shadowmage Infiltrator standing out, the biggest surprise was the complete set of Tolaria West in the deck. Being able to fetch out Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth; Urza’s Factory; Slaughter Pact; and Academy Ruins at will is always nice. In essence, running this full set allows them to always win the Urborg war and keep Tendrils and Korlash powered up all the time after the first couple of turns without needing to run a double-digit Swamp count.
Psychotic Episode is the only other standout from an otherwise normal-looking Teachings build, but being able to do something off an end of turn Careful Consideration has got to be nice, considering the complete lack of maindeck counters. In addition, it gives the pilot the maximum amount of information about his opponent’s hand and deck, which is of utmost importance when piloting a Teachings deck, since you have to plan out your moves pretty far in advance in many cases.
Not much left to say about Jason Imperiale’s build that I haven’t gone over with Celso’s deck. He ran Mire Boa, which is a fine choice since it’s an obnoxious blocker in the G/W mirror, and it can single-handedly beat Teachings decks when backed by Griffin Guide. Otherwise, the only unique thing was the use of Chromatic Star, to help power up Goyf and avoid any early mana issues with Serra Avenger or Whirling Dervish post-board.
One more interesting note about the Top 15 decks is the complete dearth of Mono Red decks to be seen. Yet there’s a White Weenie… Awkward. In all seriousness, I pit this on (who else) Tarmogoyf, whose decks tend to plow Mono Red, while White Weenie can at least fly around the little bugger. Don’t despair though, children! The PTQ in Chicago this weekend featured a Top 8 with four Mono Red Aggro, three Teachings, and a Goyf deck. Although if I was planning on playing Mono Red, I’d desperately be trying to fit in multiples Word of Seizing in the maindeck.
The unique piece of tech involved in that Top 8 had to be Adrian Sullivan using Gaea’s Blessing in his Teachings deck. So it not only lets him re-use Tendrils of Corruption multiple times, but his counters and other one-ofs if need be, and it takes away food from Goyf, and it draws a card? Just wow.
We’ll end on that note for now, and I’ll see you all next week. Just remember that up is down and black is day.
Josh Silvestri
Team Reflection
E-mail me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom