Part 1a of this article can be found here, and part 2 can be found here.
In September I drove to Akron, Ohio and played in a Beta Mox tournament, which I won handily with Long. Then, November 2nd I flew to Kansas City, Missouri to play in a Power Blue tournament. First place was Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister, while Second place was a Mox Sapphire. I was going to wait to present this report after December 1st, if the DCI decided not to Restrict Lion’s Eye Diamond because I was going to do another article series updating the deck and going into more detail on how to play it. That’s kind of moot now though.
Tournament Report – Kansas City Power Blue Tournament 11/02/03
Freddie Williams graciously agreed to pick me up at the airport and Freddie and his girlfriend was cool enough to let me stay at his place. While I took the couch, their cats slept on my legs.
The tournament ended up only having around 33 people – A little disappointing for such a sweet prize. Nonetheless, A&Z Comics is a great establishment and I highly recommend it for anyone who is going to play up that way.
Here’s what I played:
The Mana, a.k.a. 5 Lotuses, 8 Moxes(n), and 5 Rituals, and some land.
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
Setting up and protecting the Combo
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
Cards that Fetch cards that win:
4 Burning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
Cards that Win:
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Memory Jar
Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard:
Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony
Engines:
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Diminishing Returns
Control Hoser:
4 Xantid Swarm
Answers:
1 Balance
1 Primitive Justice
1 Meltdown
1 Hull Breach
4 Overload
Round One
I sit down across from young Tom Gibbs. Tom had brought his crew from some nearby state – they were all in High School, but all great kids. Tom was running Long.dec, but with the”new” tech suggested by Ric Flair (Tony Scumbrielini) on the Mana Drain of using four Chrome Mox and four Spoils of the Vault. I had tried out that build, but found it far more fragile than regular long. He also was missing a few of the regular moxen as well. I lost the die roll and kept and had to mulligan. My deck wasn’t juiced up yet. I kept an inexcusable hand of six, only because it has two Duress. My Duresses tremendously slowed down the game and we both went into topdeck mode going up to turn 6 I think. It was pretty insane for the Long mirror. Eventually I drew a business spell and went off.
Game 2 was ridiculous. He went off on turn 1. Yikes. I sat back and enjoyed the show. I later found out we were the only ones playing long. Funny how these things work out.
Game 3 was probably one of the best games of magic I have ever played. My opening play was City of Brass, Chromatic Sphere, pass the turn. On his turn 1, he plays a lot of spells and a Tendrils. He looked at me as if the game was over. But I counted up his storm and he only had eighteen points. This put him at thirty-six life, and me at one life. Ouch. The only difference was that I had cards in hand, while he spent his entire load. Over the next few turns I drew Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, then finally Gemstone Mine. But recall, all I had in play was City of Brass and one life.
I then drew Wheel of Fortune. I looked over, and mulled doing something. I used my intuition and decided to wait one turn. He only had three cards in hand and not much in play. I decided, one more turn, and then I’ll go for it. It got a bit scary. He drew. He played Dark Ritual, Mox Chrome, and then Spoils of the Vault for something, but he failed to go off this turn. He also lost something like eight life to Spoils. He passed the turn to me and I drew Lion’s Eye Diamond. At this point I got it. I played the LED, both Rituals, and popped the Chrome Sphere for Red to cast Wheel, blowing LED in response and I easily went off. Afterward, Richard Mazziutto said in order to win that game I had to play incredibly well, have had my opponent play poorly, and have a ton of luck. I went from 1 life on turn 1 to win. That shows you how broken this deck is.
Round Two:
I sat down across a nice guy playing a R/B budget deck. He had Mishra’s Factories, Lightning Bolts, and small critters. Game one, I joke you not, he went Dark Ritual, Duress, Duress, Duress. We both laughed. I had Bargain in my hand and I still managed to play it on turn 5 or so, but by that point I was under 8 life. That was my last game loss of the day. The next two games I won on turn one and two.
Round Three:
I sat down across from Richard Mazziutto. Richard goes by the handle”shockwave” on IRC and the mana drain and is best known for his exploits at the Type One Championship with one of his signature”rogue” decks, WorldGorger Combo.
I had prepared heavily for this match… just as I had tested a lot of all of the good match-ups. In fact, I had Dragon, SpoilsMask, Mono Blue, and Long built up in my box at this time. As soon as I got back from England, I knew Dragon would be good, so I bought up Bazaars as quickly as I could, and got four from IRCers and Ebay for a bargain price. When I played in a tournament in Akron I traded for a fifth – which I traded at the Columbus Mirrodin Pre-Release to Troll and Toad for a Mishra’s Workshop.
Since I already had four Mishra’s Workshops and four Bazaar’s, that’s a trade I’ll do any day of the week. One of my stated goals in writing about Type One from the very beginning, was to help bring stability and predictability to the format – to make knowledge less asymmetrical. As I have stated at length in other articles, the benefits of this are numerous. A stable and coherent metagame makes the DCI’s job a lot easier and makes it easier to”metagame.” At one point, I was going to do an article on Long in August and then one on Dragon in September. However, my experience with Long just kept expanding, so I never got to devote time to a Dragon article despite the fact that I finally got around to doing some in-depth testing.
I knew Richard would have Deeds, Swarms, Tormod’s Crypt, and likely Stifle in his sideboard. The question was if he would switch to Chalice of the Void in order to deal with Long. One of the things you have to understand about Sideboarding is that you need a different plan if you are playing or drawing. If he had Chalice of the Void and was playing first, then bringing in Tormod’s Crypt gets a lot worse. The big lesson of testing this match-up is that Dragon’s disruption is simply too inconsistent to be a threat, and Dragon’s goal is to try and combo out as quickly as possible. This puts a lot of strain on Dragon, as it forces itself to move that quickly – one side effect of the aggressive use of Bazaar is that if it doesn’t get the cards it needs, it’s not going to have much to work with. I knew that I could play slightly slower, meaning I don’t need to use the full speed of my deck in order to still outrace Dragon. Another element of the equation is how weak Duress is against Long. Duress isn’t too threatening because, unlike Force of Will, I haven’t invested in the spell and used precious mana.
My plan was simple. Bring in Tormod’s Crypt’s if I’m going first and if he has Chalice of the Void. One might ask, why Crypt? If I am playing a faster deck, then isn’t that superfluous? If he has Chalice, then a turn 1 Crypt means that both players game’s are slowed down. That could buy me enough time to get around Chalice. Xantid Swarm is critical. In testing, if we brought in three Stifles then Swarm stops four FoW and three Stifle, as well as surprise wins through Necromancy.
I won the die roll and stated I’d play first.
Game One was pretty quick. He had two Duresses – on turn 1 and 2, but I went off on turn 3.
Game Two. I knew he didn’t have Chalices, so I decided to bring in Tormod’s Crypts anyway. I sided in two Swarms and two Crypts.
I drew and resolved a turn 1 Xantid Swarm. Afterward, he told me he was surprised by this play, but when I explained it, he seemed to agree that it was the logical choice. The effect of the Swarm was that I never really got to see much of his hand beyond what he discarded with Bazaar. As expected, he aggressively used the Bazaar, but he couldn’t find a Dragon. But it wasn’t as if I gave him much time. I believe I won on turn 3 – again, playing slightly slower to maximize my chances.
In testing, one of the difficult things was to figure out was what to sideboard out with Dragon for the Long match-up. It’s pretty obvious that the Squees are weaker, but cutting them all can be painful – as we did. Richard’s answer was the most logical, although belies the weaknesses Dragon has against Long. He Sided out Time Walk and two Squees for three Stifles. I can’t remember if he sided out anything else for Crypts or Deeds. But taking out two Squees mean that you can still try and aggressively use Bazaars, but not totally hose your hand if you Intuition up or happen to draw one of the Squees.
At this point I was 3-0-0. And I was 6-2 in games.
Round Four
My opponent was playing GroAtog with the Accumulated Knowledge Engine to cover for the problems of not having Gush.
Game One:
My Duresses cleared Mana Drains and Force of Wills, and went off in the first few turns.
Game Two:
Xantid Swarm joined the fun to keep his fat hand useless. This was one of the few games where I drew my Chain of Vapor and used it. I Chained an early Dryad, just to buy some time. And with an active Swarm, I had little trouble going off early.
I wish I could remember more about this match, but it goes precisely as most control matches do as I described here. No deck is about as brutal as that Tog deck used in testing featured there. Against control decks with Wasteland, you just have be intelligent about the lands you play keeping in mind that any land you play could be dead before you can use it again. That incentive may make you hold back some key lands.
Round Five:
This was the final round of the Swiss and I wanted to draw in so I’d be first seed going in. In case of a final prize split, I’d then still be first place at the end of the tournament. My opponent didn’t really care, but he wanted to see how my deck operated. Boy, did I show him. He wanted to play one game before we went and got some food. We did.
My opening hand was: Lion’s Eye Diamond, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Black Lotus, Mind’s Desire, Chromatic Sphere, and Demonic Consultation. How sick is that? My opponent was playing first. He dropped Wasteland and everyone behind me snickered.
I then drew a fourth Lion’s Eye Diamond. I played all four Lion’s Eye Diamonds as my opponent looked in awe. I dropped Black Lotus, and played Chromatic Sphere with BB floating. I played Demonic Consultation for Burning Wish and sacked my LEDs in response for BBBBBBBRRRUUU mana floating. Burning Wish was like the seventh or eighth card and I cast it and found Yawgmoth’s Will. I popped the Chrome sphere to float a B into a U. I played Yawgmoth’s Will. Storm Count: 9. I replayed all the LEDs and the Black Lotus and the Chrome Sphere. Storm Count: 14. Then I played Mind’s Desire for 15 with a ton of mana floating.
My opponent could only say that if he got another turn, he would have won because he had a turn 2 Null Rod. This is one of huge problems with Null Rod that I have pointed at for some time now. As hate, Null Rod’s huge weakness is that it is used almost exclusively in budget decks, as my opponent’s deck was. My opponent was playing a R/G hate deck with Blood Moons and Null Rod. He had Vineyards for Blastoderms and even had one or two Stormbinds.
I was first after the Swiss and now we were going into the top 8.
Top 8: Quarter-Finals
The top 8 consisted of myself playing Long, Richard playing Dragon, two R/G hate decks the players called”choda,” one Chalice Black deck which is Zherbus’ mono-Black deck with Nantuko Shades and Sphere of Resistance, a budget Suicide Black deck, the GroAtog deck, and I think a Fish deck made it to the top 8.
This round I was to face the budget Suicide Black player. This was a pretty funny match and my opponent was amused as I went off on turn one game one. Game 2, I sided in Overloads for fear that I was going to face Chalice of the Void. My opponent’s first turn consisted of Mox Jet, go. I could hardly contain my laugh, because my opening play was to Overload the only mana source he drew the entire game. Our match was then over pretty quickly.
Top 4: Semi-Finals
I have no memory of this match. However, I know I won.
I was hoping this would mean Richard and I would be in the finals. Unfortunately, Dragon died to Null Rod + Blood Moon. I heard it was a hard fought match though. Richard also had to face the Chalice Black deck the round before and he narrowly won that according to Richard.
Finals:
I have already won a lot of power this year. The Lotus in February, the Beta Sapphire in October, and now at the least I’d get the Sapphire from this. So I offered a split to the R/G hate deck, even though I was confident that he had a rather slim chance at winning. A split at this point would mean that I get first place since I was undefeated in the Swiss. I looked at the cards and the Mox and the Walk were pristine. The Ancestral wasn’t in great shape but it was still ancestral. I offered him the Twister and the Ancestral and he graciously accepted. We shook hands and it was an amicable split.
You may ask, what happens if you have to play against Chalice, or where the heck were the Chalices?
Adapting Long To The Mirrodin Metagame And Beyond
I anticipated having to face Chalice at least every other round. We did extensive testing against Chalice Keeper, Chalice Welder Mud/Stax, and other decks randomly sideboarding in Chalice. The first change that needed to be made was the addition of Meltdown to the sideboard. After testing, it became apparent that what we needed was a one-mana instant to destroy a Chalice. Thus Overload was suggested. Overload was perfect. Further testing revealed that Chalice at one was the correct play, but we’d gambled that people wouldn’t yet figure that out and that the next step would then be to further diversify the artifact destruction spell base. At the least, Meltdown was quite solid. In a run of our gauntlet, nothing won like Long. Our early dismissal of Long being hosed in a Chalice environment was a bit hasty.
Here is my final Long.dec decklist for the post-Mirrodin metagame:
Stephen Menendian
Long.dec
12/28/03 (exactly four months after the list Randy pointed out that I had posted)
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Burning Wish
4 Duress
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Necropotence
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Stifle
Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Stifle
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Primitive Justice
1 Meltdown
3 Crumble
2 Naturalize
The maindeck Stifle is there for the mirror – the chance or randomly drawing it in mirror matches is enough to win games. Additionally, stopping a Wasteland or a Fetchland can be a huge tempo boost. The sideboard reflects the most up to date technology at answering Chalices and Spheres.
I took this to the Mox Sapphire tournament in Columbus, Ohio where proxies could be used. As such, I expected a rough crowd. Here are the top 8 decklists, and here is my tournament report.
Tournament Report – Columbus Sapphire Tournament 12/28
The incidence of proxies and the fact that Long.dec was soon to be illegal meant that I expected many people to play it. Nonetheless, I knew some teammates would be playing Stax and Tog, so I couldn’t have four Stifle in my sideboard.
Round One: Josh Rayden, The Mirror
I was getting flashbacks of Kansas City. What’s with the mirror in round 1? I not only lost the roll, but I had to mulligan to five, on account of getting no land. Josh is a sharp guy, so I thought for certain I was going to be in trouble. My opening hand had one Gemstone Mine and a Brainstorm, which I was living on a prayer. He went Land, go. My Gemstone Mine, go wasn’t much stronger. On turn 3, he played Necropotence. On his endstep, I brainstormed into Lion’s Eye Diamond and Black Lotus. I won on my third turn.
Game 2 involved me winning on turn 1.
Round Two: Random Powered Deck
I sit down across from a nice gent. He wins the die roll and elects to go first.
My opening hand was: City of Brass, Tolarian Academy, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Demonic Consultation and Chromatic Sphere. These are the kind of hands I really thrive on – they involve an incredible amount of decision making, but the reason I like them is because they are so flexible. The amount of cards I will have seen and have access to on turn 1 is potentially very high.
My opponent has turn 1: Volcanic Island, Black Lotus, Zuran Orb, Juggernaut. On my turn, somehow I manage to cast Duress and see Air Elemental, Island, and Thran Dynamo, which is discarded. I carefully count storm, knowing that he can get to twenty-two life, and I win on turn 1. I could have slow played it knowing how slow his clock was, but I had plenty of slack in my combo this game. Game 2 was just as brutal. A turn 1 Duress revealed a lot of random older cards. It was as if he hadn’t updated his deck in a long time, with only one Berserk and a Juzam Djinn in it. He scooped as I cast Yawgmoth’s Will.
Round Three: Mike Lenzo, $T4ks
I helped put together his decklist the night before – it can be found here.
This was the match-up I was dreading the most. His deck is probably the worst deck I could face. Losing the roll almost certainly meant losing game 1. I won the roll and won game 1.
Game Two I sided in Primitive Justice, two Naturalize, and three Crumble. I believe his opening play involved Chalice for one. My opening play was: Mox, Mox Emerald, Mox, Glimmervoid, with two Naturalizes in hand. He wasted my only land, and soon I was forced to Naturalize the Chalice and a Smokestack that joined it. The problem was that he summoned up Karn very shortly, and destroyed all of my mana. I soon scooped.
In game 3, my opening hand included both a Crumble and a Naturalize. This is one of the more difficult games I have ever played. This game involved an enormous number of decisions. Among them included Demonic Consultation, Brainstorm, and Vampiric Tutor. One of the earliest plays in the game involved him playing a Chalice for two. This was certainly a long-term threat to me, and I believe his rationale was that he thought my only answers were Naturalize, seeing as he saw two in game 2. This might have worked, but I used it to my advantage.
As long as Chalice for two was on the table he could not play Chalice for one or Sphere of Resistance. This game got extremely complicated as Smokestack and Tangle Wire joined his side of the board. I had to figure out everything in advance just perfectly. At one critical point in time, I was planning on going off when he had two counters on Tangle Wire and one counter on his smokestack. My only choice was to play a bunch of key spells on my upkeep. I had Brainstormed the turn before and knew I needed my top card, so I floated mana in my upkeep and drew for my draw step. I then used two Black to cast Demonic Consultation for another Lion’s Eye Diamond, and then Vampiric Tutor for Burning Wish. The Lion’s Eye Diamonds were excellent permanents to tap down to Tangle Wire, because I can still sacrifice them for mana without having to tap them.
I tried to think of everything that might foil my plans, and the only two cards I was concerned about were Karn and Memory Jar. Those would be the worst things he could do to me. Unfortunately, he cast Memory Jar and used it, but he got nothing out of it except for multiple Welders. It was win now, or never. I tapped a Gemstone Mine for Green to cast Crumble on his Chalice. I then sacrificed that Mine. I tapped both LED’s down to Tangle Wire. Somehow I managed to massage a Brainstorm into another Burning Wish and went off.
Round Four: Doug Linn: Red Fish
The fish deck is, for most intents and purposes, the anti-Long.dec. It has Null Rods and Stifles maindeck, on top of Force of Wills, and he even had a few Daze. Early Duress and Dazes slowed our game down. On my turn 1 Duress I saw: Standstill, Time Walk, Wasteland, Island, Cloud of Faeries, and at least one other card. I thought about it for a while and decided to take the Standstill. He played the Wasteland and cast Time Walk. He then played Cloud of Faeries and took another turn. He played another land and tried to Wasteland one of my lands. This was the only time I used Stifle the entire day and I Stifled the Wasteland to save my land.
About twenty-five minutes into the match (which was only about turn 6 at that point), I Wished for Yawgmoth’s Will. Playing through that turn took at least ten minutes. This was my play error for the day: When I Brainstormed, I put back Dark Ritual so that I might grab Tolarian Academy. The Academy only tapped for two mana while Ritual plus Yawg’s Will would have given me enough to win. Instead, I had to set myself up to go off again as soon as possible. An early Consult had robbed me of three Lion’s Eye Diamonds and my Black Lotus – and my Yawg Will attempt earlier left me with the most minimal card pool.
I Duressed him on turn 8 and saw Fairy Conclave – he also only had three lands in play. Therefore, the next turn, I went for the Will again and tried to go off. At this point we were about forty-two minutes into the round. I only had about twelve cards left in my library and I had access to fifteen mana total after Yawgmoth’s Will. The problem I had was that he had one new card. If it was Stifle, I would not be able to win because I only had one Burning Wish left in my deck. I make it clear that I am not losing to Duress at this point.
I think for a bit and then I Tinkered away a Mox for a Mana Crypt, just to thin my deck so that my Brainstorm would have a greater chance of seeing Duress. I Brainstormed into nothing – but then I played another Brainstorm and saw Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor – a combination which finds me Duress. By this point there was a crowd around our table because we were forty-eight minutes into the round. I Duressed Doug and we all laughed because, sure enough, he had Stifle. I then wished for Tendrils and won.
Game 2 I sideboarded in some artifact destruction. He went Wasteland, go. As I began my turn, time was called. As a practical matter, it is impossible for Fish to win in the two turns he was going to have, and in turns, I have as much time as I need to figure things out. Well, it so happened that my hand was: Lion’s Eye Diamond, Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Mana Vault, Duress, and Demonic Tutor. Instead of playing Black Lotus first, I play Lion’s Eye Diamond to signal that I have plenty of mana and to decrease the chance that he’ll counter the Lotus – which he does not.
I sac the Lotus for Black and play Dark Ritual – which he then Force of Wills. I decide at this point that I do not think he has another Force of Will. Nonetheless, I play the second Dark Ritual and the Mana Vault with the remaining Black. I cast Duress and see that the way is clear. I use one of the two remaining Black and tap the Mana Vault and cast Demonic Tutor with the response of sacking the Lion’s Eye Diamond for Black. I find and play Bargain and win before we even go to additional turns.
Round Five: Joe Bushman With Tog.
At this point we are both at table one and I have the most points, so we draw in.
Quarter-Finals: Anthony Bendinelli
Anthony was playing a very slightly modified Gencon Championship Tog build. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was playing at first, but I had to mulligan to six. I kept a relatively poor hand that involved a turn 3 Bargain with two Duresses for turns 1 and 2. My Duresses peeled good cards, but his hand was simply too strong. My first Duress took Force of Will after seeing he only had one Mana Drain for counter power. On turn 2, he dropped Black Lotus and a Land. On my second turn, I Duressed away his Mana Drain, but he still had Fact or Fiction.
On his endstep, he cast Fact or Fiction and it was a most unfortunate set of cards: he had Force of Will, Psychatog, Mana Drain, Library of Alexandria, and a Mox. I could not split the piles in a way that would deny him counter power and I failed to draw anything in the meantime that would be of use. I believe I split the piles of Force of Will and Psychatog in one pile, and Mana Drain and everything else in the other. On my third turn I debated whether to play the Bargain and decided to go for it, hoping that that would keep the pressure on and during subsequent turns I would draw must-counter threats. Sometimes that is sufficient. He predictably Drained my Bargain, but the real problem was that he topdecked Yawgmoth’s Will after having just used his Lotus and having six colorless to work with. This game was wrapped up shortly thereafter.
I sideboarded in four Xantid Swarms and the games that followed were heavily lopsided in my favor, involving extremely broken plays.
Semi-Finals: Joe Bushman Playing Tog
Game 1 involved Joe using Stifle, Force of Will, Duress, and Mana Drain to annihilate me. Game 2 involved me siding in Xantid Swarms, once again – but I didn’t draw them. Most of the game involved both of us blowing our hands throwing out threats, and the other player trying to answer them.
Around turn 6, I was about to enter the world of Tog lock when I topdecked Chromatic Sphere. I used the Chromatic Sphere and luckily drew Wheel of Fortune, which I then cast and Joe could not answer. By this point in the game, I had multiple moxen and lands in play, and I used my mana to explode and easily win.
Game 3 involved Joe playing Black Lotus, Mox, Land Demonic Tutor. My understanding is that he did not have anything of use – no Drains, no Force of Wills or even Stifle. Somehow I jedi mind-tricked him into getting Mind Twist for two: he hit Mind’s Desire and a Gemstone Mine. I quickly recovered and sealed the game up.
Finals:
Paul had gone through a vicious Top 8 having to play both Mike with Stax, and Doug with Fish to reach me. I was extremely impressed that Paul beat Doug and Mike. Evidently, Paul won the coin flip against Mike and elected to play first. The result was that he won on turn 1 in both games 1 and 3. The down side was that he got smashed by Sphere of Resistance + Chalice of the Void on turn 1 of game 2. This is simply another example of the principle I have been expounded for some time now: play the more broken deck, and you have the best chance of simply being more broken than another sick deck. Paul and I decided to split the prizes and the tournament ended.
I believe that Lion’s Eye Diamond is one of the best acceleration spells ever printed. Probably in the top 10 – a list that includes Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Mox Sapphire. Just for starters, Lion’s Eye Diamond is certainly a stronger card than Mishra’s Workshop – which is why LED was restricted and Workshop wasn’t.
In Type One, LED had found a very happy home in budget Madness decks that also had Bazaar of Baghdad. If Lion’s Eye Diamond hadn’t rotated out of Extended, it would have been amazing in Extended Madness decks, adding tremendous speed just as it has to the Type One madness decks. Another benefit of LED is that in current Tangle Wire infested formats like T1 and Extended, LED is still usable even though it’s tapped – Unlike Black Lotus. Any card that gives you three mana of any color for free is going to need a much bigger drawback than simply discarding your hand. Speed is simply too valuable in Magic to not abuse the hell out of, which is one reason that Oscar Tan may not find LED particularly disgusting, because he may be viewing it from the narrow lens of card advantage. I also guarantee that if LED hadn’t been restricted, you’d be seeing it in more than just Long and the Madness deck.
Finally, in case the DCI had only restricted Lion’s Eye Diamond, we had a list of Long ready to go:
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Burning Wish
4 Duress
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Necropotence
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tendrils of Agony
I was 95% sure they’d restrict Lion’s Eye Diamond. In the weeks before, I wasn’t sure they’d restrict Chrome Mox, but there are several good reasons to have done so. I was telling people that they probably would, simply because of how good acceleration is in Type One. The strength of Grim Monolith and Ancient Tomb in Extended is a demonstration of how powerful acceleration is, and can only suggest how good Lotus Petal must have been in Type Two when it was printed. Can you imagine how good LED would be in Extended madness, if it was legal? Even better than in Type One madness. Turn one: LED, land. Sac it and play a turn 1 6/6 and a Rootwalla or two is quite insane. And that might not even be the best play.
Why Elvish Spirit Guide over Chrome Mox? Simple. Elvish Spirit Guide is a better card in this deck. I realize it is something of an irony that I like cards like Lion’s Eye Diamond so much, while not liking Chrome Mox and Force of Will. The reasoning is rather simple. No intelligent or non-desperate Long player would ever sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond, unless you knew your plan was going to work or, more likely, their hand was empty and they had Brainstormed some goodie on top of their library so that their next draw would be pretty solid. Chrome Mox made the deck too fragile. This deck already has very few key business spells – throwing away one of them to imprint on a Chrome Mox makes the deck much weaker to countermagic and targeted discard. Elvish Spirit Guide is a Green Lotus Petal and vastly underused card. When used in combination with the four Chromatic Spheres to fix the mana, there isn’t that much of a problem. We tested the deck out and it lost a very marginal amount of its speed.
For that reason, I think the DCI is wise to restrict Burning Wish as well. Although I do think it would have earned the restriction, simply through the modified deck without four LEDs. Without Burning Wish and LED, I tested a few other combo variants and they were really disappointing. They were not even close to being as powerful as Long.
As for Chrome Mox, well, here is the bottom line. Restrictions only come once every three months. It happens so infrequently that letting a card like Chrome Mox sit out there until it is actually abused, is begging for trouble. With LED out of the way, focus would renew on breaking Chrome Mox.
The restriction of LED and Wish is a bittersweet pill for me to have to swallow – losing a deck I’ve put so much hard work into – even testing a post-LED build. What makes it leave something of an acrid taste in my mouth is that not enough people truly appreciated the power of the deck. Too few people liked the deck enough to work with it – learning to play a deck of Long’s difficulty proved to be a barrier to playing it that I did not anticipate. After all, few want to learn how to play with a deck that makes you discard your hand. Towards the final moments of November as the announcement drew near I found myself wishing, against the better long-term interests of the format, that they wouldn’t do the right thing, that they might not restrict Lion’s Eye Diamond. Even if Long is a disgusting deck, it still needed more time to become the truly dominating deck it would have inevitably become.
In the future, I hope that the DCI continues its cautious approach to the restricted list and follows the criteria I suggested and Type One will be a great format to play in during 2004.
Stephen Menendian
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P.S. Circa 1996, I remember Jess Means had his deck in these sleeves that made his deck as tall as if it was in toploaders, but they were flexible and foggy clear. I wish I could find sleeves like those again, but I don’t even have a clue what the brand was. Anyone who knows what I’m talking about I’d love to know – so drop me a line.