“People do nothing but scoop on the second turn in sideboarded games with Tenacious Tron. Sometimes they try to stretch it out until the fourth or fifth turn, but then the other guy will expose Ancient Grudge and… I mean… let’s be honest… It’s out of your hands.”
Mike Flores
Alternate titles for this article include “Deep Analysis – Wronger than Wrongerson” or “Deep Analysis – O RLY?”
I know exactly where Mike’s coming from on this, as I myself sidelined Tenacious Tron a few weeks ago on a similar line of reasoning. Destructive Flow was on the rise, and Aggro-Loam was maindecking Ghost Quarter and boarding Ancient Grudge and Shattering Spree. I honestly thought there was just too much hate (which I’ll use as shorthand for splash damage in this article, as it’s almost certain the Grudges were really aimed at other opponents) for the deck to compete.
This is going to be embarrassing, but I’ll say it anyway: I never actually tested those matchups.
I just assumed they were unwinnable, and cooked up a four-color Flow deck to play instead. That list failed me in spectacular fashion at two separate tournaments, leading me back to the drawing board and wondering if I should have given up on TT in the first place.
In retrospect, it’s clear that I should have spent some time checking out Tron’s resilience to the hate before abandoning it. My excuse – and it’s a poor one – was that if my suspicions were confirmed, and Tron couldn’t stand the heat, I wouldn’t have had time to run the replacement deck through the mammoth gauntlet of Extended decks before the next tournament.
Back in less-varied environments, though, there was just no excuse for this kind of behavior. If you didn’t think your Affinity deck could beat the hate in Mirrodin Block Constructed, there were only a couple of matchups you had to test to prove or disprove that theory. Yet a lot of people never even considered playing Affinity because, much as I did with Tenacious Tron, they assumed it couldn’t beat the hate and never tested that assumption out.
Informed players made a substantial amount of money exploiting this at the Grand Prix level. They played Affinity in a field full of hate and, well, beat it. Their opponents would frantically hurl Shatters, Oxidizes, Electrostatic Bolts and more at the artifact menaces, and then concede to a 7/7 Moriok Rigger. Affinity was a Top 8 staple that season, even though each and every player in the room was always gunning for it. And each and every player who refused to test Affinity’s resilience to hate, who concluded that it wasn’t worth playing before even giving it a chance to prove itself, was one fewer potential lucksack to out-Disciple of the Vault the actual Affinity players in the mirror match.
Like I said, a lot of people never bothered to test Affinity against a hateful gauntlet of Oxidizes and the like, but I’ll wager even more players tested a few games, lost them, and gave up prematurely. It wasn’t easy to beat the hate, after all. You had to have your maindeck and sideboard configured correctly, and you had to know what plays to make to succeed in the face of such adversity. Even then you wouldn’t crush the hate decks, you’d just put yourself in a position to beat them despite their on-paper advantage.
The real problem was the following sequence of facts and thoughts.
- I will only discover that Affinity can beat the hate if I test with it a lot.
- Early testing indicates that Affinity gets smashed by the hate.
- If Affinity gets smashed by the hate, why should I keep testing it?
It’s a reasonable way to think, but pessimistic playtesting can easily color your results if you aren’t careful. If you go into each testing session assuming you’ll fold to the hate – and give up after a few games worth of losing to it – you haven’t learned as much as you may think. I’ve seen it happen over and over: people go into a bad matchup expecting defeat, play lazy Magic, lose, and declare their suspicions confirmed. “I told you I can’t beat that deck. Can we play something else now?”
This is, of course, the opposite of what you should be doing. If you’re expecting a bad matchup going in, you need to be watching like a hawk for any way to get the edge. Slow down and take more time to make your plays than you normally would with that deck, because it is precisely when the opponent has ample disruption ready for you that autopilot mode will hurt you the most. You must instead anticipate the disruption at every turn; the best way to minimize its damage is to re-evaluate each of your plays with the possibility of the disruptive card in mind.
Do you dump all your Ravager counters on that Nexus when the opponent has a Red open? You should neither think “Of course not – he’ll obviously Electrostatic Bolt it in response,” nor “I’m going for it; he’d better show me Electrostatic Bolt or he’s toast.” The question is much more complicated than that, but when your back’s up against a wall, it’s easy to make snap decisions because it feels like it doesn’t matter what you do. After all, if he doesn’t beat me with one hate card, he’s surely going to get me with the next five, right? He has so many ways to wreck me!
These are exactly the times when you should be going into the tank and reasoning through exactly what the opponent might have. Say he does have the Electrostatic Bolt – if I don’t go all-in on the Nexus here, is that Bolt, along with the cards I figure he’s holding, going to beat me anyway? If so, then I’m dead in the water if he’s holding a Bolt; as such, I must assume he doesn’t have it and go all-in on the Nexus so as to seize my last remaining opportunity to win. If I still have a reasonable shot at victory even if he’s holding the Bolt, though, I should play more conservatively and avoid giving my opponent the chance to end the game right here.
It doesn’t take that much longer to reason through the play a bit more, but you’d be surprised how many people think the game is hopelessly lost – or blindly assume that the desperate (or conservative) play is their best option – throw test games away because of it, and scrap the deck on the grounds that it seems incapable of beating the hate.
Things are different when you’re an old hand at the victimized deck, though. If you played Affinity in Standard coming into Mirrodin Block, for example, you might have been more skeptical about your chances of losing to the expected hate. You would have known how powerful your deck was, and which changes you could have made to give it the resilience necessary to compete.
This is exactly what I should have done with Tenacious Tron. TT was vulnerable to Grudge because it played four copies of Chalice of the Void, another four of Chrome Mox, and three of Azorius Signet. Sundering Titan, Razormane Masticore, and Platinum Angel were the most common clocks, so Grudge was virtually a guaranteed two-for-one (or more, if it hit a Mox).
Mike said “I’m astonished Saito was able to make Top 8 of Singapore. I mean, he’s awesome and everything, but like, people do nothing but scoop on the second turn in sideboarded games with Tenacious Tron” How did Saito do it? It’s no big mystery, really; he just made the deck resilient. He beat the hate.
The foolish Tenacious Tron player says, “gee, my Razormane Masticores sure do seem to die all the time now that everyone is playing Ancient Grudge.” The intelligent player says, “You know, I think it’s time to take out the Razormane Masticores.” If you’re playtesting against – and, let’s say, drubbing – the former, don’t be surprised to find yourself losing to the latter at the actual PTQ.
Saito cut a pair of Chrome Moxen from the main, removed Razormane Masticore, and set himself up to board out as many artifacts as he had to in order to blank the opponent’s sideboard cards… and at the last PTQ of my season, I did the same. I ditched the four-color Destructive Flow deck that had disappointed me at the St. Louis PTQ and at GP: Dallas for a Tron list nearly identical to Saito’s.
Here’s how my matches at this weekend’s PTQ went:
Round 1: Pair against teammate Zac Hill. Essentially every X-1-1 will make it in, so we risk the round 1 ID.
Round 2: Defeat Tog splashing for (and drawing, early) both Ancient Grudge and Dwarven Blastminer.
Round 3: Defeat Haterator.
Round 4: Defeat Bests splashing Trygon Predator, boarding (and drawing, early) both Ancient Grudge and Dwarven Blastminer.
Round 5: Defeat Tog splashing for (and drawing, early) both Ancient Grudge and Dwarven Blastminer.
Round 6: Lose to Affinity maindecking (quite relevantly) Pithing Needle.
Round 7: Misplay into a loss against Ichorid.
Before I go on, I’d like to single out my second-round Tog opponent, good man Curtis Heminway. In game 3, I mulled to five and it took me forever to dig my way back out. I did, though, and laid Sundering Titan and Mindslaver lock on the table on the third extra turn. I lacked the time to finish the game, but Curtis graciously conceded rather than put us both at 0-0-2. It was a kind act I’ll never forget, even though I failed to put the gift to good use.
The Affinity player beat me in game 1 by Needling my Academy Ruins the turn before it could return Platinum Angel to my Tron-powered hand. (I had a Chalice out on two for the lock.) Game 2 he got modular counters on a Blinkmoth Nexus, which I have only a handful of answers to – and didn’t draw any. I’m okay with getting paired against Affinity as a rule, but the maindeck Pithing Needle was an unexpected blowout that cost me the chance to force a third game.
I straight-up misplayed my way into losing to Ichorid. On my second turn of the second game, I left Remand mana open to stop Tog or Zombie Infestation rather than playing a Chalice for one, and instead lost my game-winning Gifts to a Cabal Therapy plus a second Black source after I Remanded it. The problem was, I had the Remand play set in my mind going into my second turn, and failed to re-evaluate it based on the fact that I’d drawn a Wrath that could have held off a resolved Tog or ZI long enough for the Gifts to do its work as long as I didn’t get it Therapied next turn.
Rusty – or unprepared – opponents are one of the nicest benefits of playing a fringe deck, and Ichorid is the very definition of a fringe deck in this environment. (My opponent was literally the only person in the room packing it – Zac and I walked around and confirmed this after our first-round ID.) It had been about two months since I’d played a game against it, which definitely paid off for my opponent.
So why did I lose? I lost because I misplayed, plain and simple.
Not because of Ancient Grudge. I 3-0’d early Ancient Grudges.
Not because of Dwarven Blastminer. I 3-0’d early Dwarven Blastminers.
For those of you scoring at home, that is actually as far as you can possibly get from scooping to those alleged blowouts.
How did I beat them? I just came prepared, that’s all.
In round 2, I saw a Red source from my Tog-playing opponent in the first game, so I put him on Grudge. I boarded out my pair of Chrome Moxen for a second Academy Ruins and a Ghost Quarter. That hurt my colored mana counts a bit (dropping to eleven Blue sources, counting the admittedly unreliable Signets), but that only matters at the mulligan stage. If I keep a hand with a Blue source, I’m fine in the early game, but in the long game, playing an early Chrome Mox will come back to haunt me in the attrition war every time if the opponent is packing the souped-up Rack and Ruin. I also took out all four Chalices and the Platinum Angel, leaving me with nine artifacts – plenty to keep Thirst for Knowledge worthwhile, but not so many that Grudge would two-for-one every time.
More importantly, look which nine I kept:
3 Azorius Signet
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sundering Titan
Nobody’s hitting Explosives or Mindslaver with Grudge, and I’m still looking good if Titan eats one, as he practically Armageddons the opponent on the way out. If I play a Crucible and immediately use it to return the last Tron piece or the Academy Ruins that was sitting in the Gifts pile next to it a second ago, I could care less if it gets Grudged right away after that – it will have done its damage already.
That leaves the three Azorius Signets as the only reasonable Grudge targets, which is a far cry from the post-board Tenacious Tron of days past. Knowing this, I discarded more than a few Signets to Thirst for Knowledge on the day, and the only card of mine that was successfully Ancient Grudged at the entire tournament was a Sundering Titan. (Believe it or not, I pulled that game out anyway. Heh.)
So think twice before you dismiss a deck as too susceptible to splash damage or hate, and especially if it’s a deck you have experience piloting. If disruption is your only concern, shouldn’t you see how its resilience measures up before shelving it?
It took a little effort, a little deck knowledge, and some excellent insight from a Level 6 Mage, but I beat the Grudges. Now I’m left to wonder if I could have beaten the Flows as well, had I put my mind to it a month ago.
One thing’s for sure: the biggest mistake I made all season was not putting my mind to it. Don’t let the same thing happen to you.
See you next week.
Richard Feldman
Team Roscoe’s Chicken ‘n’ Waffles
[email protected]