“Two of the undefeated players (Worlds runner-up Alex Borteh and Sammy Batarseh) are running U-B-R Control. Interestingly, both of them sport four Nightscape Familiars in the main deck.”
–Randy Buehler, Day One Recap, GP – Denver
Really, Randy -“Interestingly?”
I am touching myself right now. A lot.
Two 3-5 showings at IBC PTQs have taught me nothing. I had the right decks at the wrong times. Week one, I brought the R/G Beats, and ended up facing zero control decks.
Week three or four or whatever, I brought the Sexual Chocolate, which resembles Borteh’s and Batarseh’s decks way too much, and faced control decks from hell almost every round.
Hi, name’s John, and I’m a little behind the metagame, and how are you today?
In an effort to actually make an effort, I figured I’d try to rework my last 3-5 IBC deck into more of a”4-4″ type deck. Oh, and use Lava Zombie, too.
Cesspool – gauntlet test version 1
4x The 1/1 Ebony Fantasy Machine
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Shivan Zombie
4x Lava Zombie
4x Blazing Specter
4x Skizzik
3x Thunderscape Battlemage
2x Crypt Angel
2x Flametongue Kavu
3x Urza’s Rage
2x Agonizing Demise
23x Land
1x Keldon NECROpolis
Rules for self-testing:
1) Each players opening hand must contain at least two lands, with at least two colors represented. Mulligan to seven until this condition is achieved.
2) Try like hell to not base decisions upon knowing what’s in opponent’s hand.
3) That’s it.
I figure the metagame to be huge with R/G beats – it’s the Ohio Valley after all – and the deck that beats it: The Solution. Also, Pat Chapin and Eric Taylor made hella waves by finally building a good U/R/B deck, which qualified one, if not both, of them. Tempo should still be prevalent as well. As for Domain? Um, who cares? And I expect to lose to Go/No/Ho/Blow-Mar – if anyone still bothers to play it, that is.
So, that’s the gauntlet (for now): The Solution, R/G beats (aka Jason Means Greens), U/G Tempo, and Chapin/Taylor U/R/B. Anything else would be uncivilized. We could include the Neo-Obliterate deck as well, but as soon as we see a tappy-saccy land, we know to play, well… Differently, I guess. And hope.
Off we go.
The Solution:
4x Voice of All
4x Stormscape Apprentice
4x Galina’s Knight
4x Spectral Lynx
4x Meddling Mage
4x Absorb
4x Repulse
4x Exclude
4x Fact or Fiction
24x Lands
Playing first: 7-3
Drawing first: 5-5
Total: 12-8
That 7-3 seems an aberration. Further testing should prove it. A lot.
Jason Means Greens:
4x Skizzik
4x Raging Kavu
4x Blurred Mongoose
4x Kavu Titan
4x Thornscape Familiar
4x Thornscape Battlemage
4x Ghitu Fire
4x Scorching Lava
2x Urza’s Rage
2x Flametongue Kavu
24x Lands
Playing: 6-4
Drawing: 3-7
Drawing (with Bog Down replacing Lava Zombie): 3-1
Total: 12-12
Better practice my die rolling, chief.
U/G Tempo:
4x Kavu Titan
4x Blurred Mongoose
4x Exclude
4x Repulse
4x Rushing River
4x Fact or Fiction
4x Mystic Snake
4x Gaea’s Skyfolk
4x Temporal Springs
24x Land
Playing: 7-3
Drawing: 6-4
Total: 13-7
Ah, you can bounce so many things, but eventually you’ll have to actually kill something.
Chapin/Taylor.dec:
3x Flametongue Kavu
4x Blazing Specter
4x Fact or Fiction
3x Yawgmoth’s Agenda
4x Ravenous Rats
3x Recoil
3x Terminate
3x Void
4x Undermine
4x Fire/Ice
25x Lands
Playing: 4-6
Drawing: 3-7
Total: 7-13
Please take Yawgmoth out of the storyline. Immediately.
Okay, it’s sixty-three games later, and Lava Zombie just ain’t puttin’ on the Ritz. Sometimes he is amazing. Other times he is not. There are too many”he is not.” Once more into the breach, dear sucka duck? Nah.
Whenever I was facing a deck that contained burn, I, knowing just how sexy the 1/1 Dish of a dude can be, burned it immediately. I know that in real life, no one respects my hooka as much as I do, so perhaps he would have been ignored until it was too late, which may have helped this brother to better results — but hey, someone, someday, somewhere, will figure out that you a) burn the Familiar as soon as possible, and b) burn the Familiar as soon as possible. And until that day comes, I will continue to burn the friggin’ Familiar as soon as friggin’ possible, in anticipation that others will figure it out.
Cesspool, gauntlet test version 2
4x The 1/1 Kama Sutra – Ghetto Style
4x Shivan Zombie
4x Blazing Specter
4x Skizzik
4x Urza’s Rage
3x Thunderscape Battlemage
3x Scorching Lava
3x Ghitu Fire
3x Agonizing Demise
2x Flametongue Kavu
2x Crypt Angel
22x Land
2x Keldon NECROpolis
I wonder if adding an additional eight burn/kill spells is a good idea.
Vs. The Solution
Playing: 5-5
Drawing: 4-6
Total: 9-11
Flip a coin. Or something. But Demise is hilarious.
Vs. Jason Means Greens
Playing: 7-3
Drawing: 6-4
Total: 13-7
The discard makes a hella difference, even though R/G can top deck like a god. And Demise is hilarious on a kicked Titan.
Vs. U/G Tempo
Playing: 7-3
Drawing: 6-4
Total: 13-7
If they only had a way to actually kill something… Like Demise. Or Rage. Or Fire, Ghitu or otherwise.
Vs. Chapin/Taylor.dec
Playing: 6-4
Drawing: 4-6
Total: 10-10
I have just as many cool things as they do, but they get to use theirs twice. That’s fair.
And Demise is ass in this matchup, except for the times when I can Demise my own guy with kicker in response to being, um, killed.
A coin flip vs. The Solution seems like a good deal for me, and while Means Greens can come out of the gate like nobody’s business, the 1/1 From The Playboy Mansion can trade with most of their team, and Shivan Zombie can pick up most of the rest. Tempo takes a long time indeed to win with two-powered creatures – the ones that live, anyway. The fact that they can’t really kill anything is good times for a deck that can. Chapin/Taylor.dec is just nuts – cast as many spells as you can as fast as you can, then drop Agenda.
Heh.
You know all this testing I did? Well, it’s kind of irrelevant now, since Grand Prixes Denver and Kobe threw monkeys onto the table and beat their asses with wrenches. Of note are the four undefeated decks from day one at Kobe, each of which used at least two colors of the flag – red, white, and blue.
Since when were these part of the gauntlet, and why wasn’t I informed of this new development? Oh, since just now – and consider this your friggin’ memo. Here I go thinking that I have the gauntlet pretty well nailed for a tourney that is only eight days away, and two GPs up and tell me that I just wasted thirty hardcore hours of playtesting. Funny.
However, those Kobe decks are pretty much just tweaks on the existing gauntlet, so add and subtract a few cards and we’ll have a brand-new-but-not-really gauntlet.
Brand-new-but-not-really Gauntlet, version 2:
The Solution becomes Jun’ya Izumi’s Blue-White-Red Aggro
4x Meddling Mage
4x Galina’s Knight
4x Goblin Legionnaire
4x Lightning Angel
4x Fire/Ice
4x Urza’s Rage
4x Prophetic Bolt
4x Repulse
3x Exclude
25x Lands
We could also lump Dark Solution with the Tokyo and Kobe versions… But is it feasible to test every possible variant of The Solution? Probably not, and the decks all share the same idea: weenies and control. So two solutions are better than three, because I’m way too annoyed to break down and rebuild endless variations on the same theme.
Jason Means Greens stays the same because the deck can pull an”Oops, I win” a la Geordie Tate, and everybody knows it.
U/G Tempo becomes Ryousuke Kodani’s Blue-Green-Red Aggro
4x Gaea’s Skyfolk
4x Blurred Mongoose
4x Kavu Titan
4x Mystic Snake
2x Flametongue Kavu
4x Urza’s Rage
2x Ghitu Fire
2x Exclude
2x Repulse
4x Fire/Ice
3x Temporal Spring
25x Lands
This looks much like David Price“Monkey May I?” Again, the same ideal holds: Weenies and bounce supplemented with burn, which is something that the U/G Tempo decks were most assuredly lacking.
Chapin/Taylor.dec stays the same because, well… Man, this is tiring work, chief. Borteh and Batarsah (Guitar Solo?) have builds that are very similar; do we really need a new gauntlet version for three decks that only differ by a few cards? Actually, they mostly differ in the number of each card used; the lists are fairly standardized.
The New Solution – U/W/R Aggro
Playing: Who cares?
Drawing: Anyone?
Total: Really?
The New U/G Tempo – B/G/R Aggro
Playing: No, you don’t.
Drawing: Seriously.
Total: Have a nice day.
It seems to me that, in a metagame that changes on an hourly basis, finding a deck that holds its own (but not necessarily dominates) across the board, and that you can play well just may be the ticket to Nawleans.
The two Grand Prixs generated at least an additional ten decks that are worth considering for a gauntlet, but many are just twists and turns on the old gauntlet — which by this time next week, will be further twisted and turned far enough that everything may arrive back to where it began.
Meaning? Well, build your gauntlet, update it here and there, but by no means think that you can be prepared for everything. No amount of testing can possibly prepare you for Goblin Trenches, Void, Pernicious Deed, Blazing Specter, Blurred Mongoose, Urza’s Rage, and control out the wazoo.
Pick some poisons and figure out how to beat, or at least compete, with them. I don’t think the deck exists that can handle weenies, fatties, creatureless, burn, Domain, control, and semi-combo decks with equal confidence.
It’s a wide-open metagame that’s so wide open that it can’t even remain stagnant for one consecutive week. Is there a reason to take the time to figure out why the top decks win?
Heck, by the time you figure it out, those decks will suck and there will be a new gauntlet to try to make sense of.
So I’ll just pick my poison and try to bring it. If enough players tweak The Solution into a darker version, I’ll still be somewhat prepared. If enough players tweak U/G Tempo into a burn-ish version, I won’t be out in the cold. And if enough players play Nightscape Familiar, I’ll take all the credit. (two decks in Denver’s Top Eight contained 4x The 1/1 Regenerating Orgasm – do I still have to justify him?)
Hiding tech seems fruitless right about now, doesn’t it? Your secret tech could be outdated in the next fifteen minutes. And by the time you’ve tweaked and teched out your sexy deck, everyone else will have tweaked and reacted to previous tweaks and re-reacted and re-tweaked to everyone else’s re-tweaks – so much that your”tech” looks like a Precon in a Type 1 tourney.
This reminds me of an”old” episode (as opposed to”new”) of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air that contains the following”IBC in a nutshell” snippet:
“Man, she’s weak. Last week.”
No kidding. And I spent a billion hours fighting the enemies that have already been slain by even stronger enemies who will also be slain by even stronger enemies, who might actually turn out to be the original enemies that I fought.
There is no present tense in IBC, nor past. There is only the future, which may be doomed to repeat itself. Sort of.
I have a headache now.
Dear Wizards,
You made Magic even harder. Thanks.
Love,
Tools
The Ohio Valley is mostly beatdown – mostly. If I play a deck that can kill the beatdown decks to death, what the hell happens when I have to face seven rounds of control decks? And do I ever have answers, or just an endless myriad of questions?
I’ve been writing for about a year, and I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word”myriad” in an article. What does this mean?
“What does this mean? What do you want it to mean?”
-Al Pacino, Glengarry Glen Ross
It means I’ll probably just end up playing a Rizzo version of The Solution, since it has a fighting chance against everything, or maybe I’ll go back to the last 3-5 deck I used, Untitled Deck, and Rage wif da’ kicks.
Of course, I did spend a ton of hours testing Cesspool, so why not give it a go and hope for anything but another 3-5? Hey, maybe I can start calling it”The Truth.” Why would I rename such a well-suited moniker? Well, when I do win my three matches I can stand up and triumphantly shout…
Anyone?
C’mon, this one is easy.
You know what’s coming.
Really, you do.
Wow.
I’m waiting.
Heh.
The Truth, take three:
4x The Sooper Dooper Sexual Trooper
4x Shivan Zombie
4x Emblazoned Golem
4x Blazing Specter
4x Skizzik
3x Thunderscape Battlemage
2x Flametongue Kavu
2x Crypt Angel
4x Urza’s Rage
3x Ghitu Fire
25x Lands
The Golem is that damned good. He’s not red, chief; he blocks the living hell out of bears, and can even end up as a 4/5 if I’m not careful. After a few hours of testing, he has proven that, while he may not be an official Sexual Trooper, he has serious bedroom skillz.
And that’s the truth.
Once more with feeling: When I do win my three matches I can stand up and triumphantly shout…
Say it with me.
Come on, please?
It’ll be fun.
Jeez, just play along.
Scott Johns was right: You suck.
Â
John Friggin’ Rizzo