U.S. Regionals are not for another week, which means that we blokes in the land of the free and the home of the brave get to wade into a slightly settled metagame rather than going for it completely blind. Some initial results are in, as well as the recent StarCityGames.com event, and it seems as if Gruul is the most popular aggressive deck (and for now the most popular deck overall), no surprise there… but contrary to some comments I made last week, at least some of the people are getting behind – or should we say under the Bridge from Below strategy, believe it or not. Dredge, too, is proving to be a popular initial strategy.
We decided to take measure of these potential Decks to Beat. The combatants on Dredge were me, michaelj, looking to be impressed, and on Gruul none other than your 2007 Resident Genius Mark Herberholz. Here are the decks we ran:
Heroes:
Creatures (32)
- 2 Flame-Kin Zealot
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 4 Lore Broker
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 3 Drowned Rusalka
- 4 Magus of the Bazaar
- 4 Simian Spirit Guide
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 3 Street Wraith
Lands (18)
Spells (11)
Sideboard
Villains:
Creatures (23)
Lands (22)
Spells (15)
Sideboard
The Dredge is a qualifying deck from Coventry last weekend. Our group in New York has been practicing with a similar style of Dredge as our playtest version – Black and Blue with almost no Green – for “consistency,” or at least greater consistency, as well as more resilient Dredge enabling via Drowned Rusalka. Our Pat Sullivan’s Gruul deck is on our short list for actually playing at Regionals, and is actually first choice for at least one #1 Apprentice candidate; Pat’s deck is actually better than this one, I estimate, against Dredge because of Scorched Rusalka (which this playtest model lacks)… but if I recall, in testing the other night I did worse against Billy Moreno (playing the Dredge) than Mark posted against me… Then again Billy at least had a 60 card Dredge deck. Here’s a tip for you Gruul Deck Wins aspirants: you really want to draw Stomping Ground, not Forest; in most of the games I lost I didn’t draw enough Mountains.
The above version is of course Peter Akeley’s, big winner winner chicken dinner of the recent StarCityGames.com event. I think that the Gruul would be stronger versus Dredge if it had Scorched Rusalka, but perhaps that is not a core component of Akeley’s strategy; anyway, Mark did very well with it, though I think going in we both had a good idea of how the match would play out.
Here is how the individual games went:
Game 1
I had two Narcomoebas in my opening hand with no explosive action so I shipped. My next hand was also quite bad. I actually mulliganed all the way to three (Gemstone Mine, Magus of the Bazaar, and Bridge from Below) but Mark had a Magic Workstation error and we had to reboot. So I decided to shotgun the free no mulligans… So of course my first two hands were terrible, but at least I got away with a mull to five only rather than three. Victory! Sadly that little burgle was as close to victory as I was going to get. The opener was Svogthos, Magus of the Bazaar, Gemstone Mine, and Bridge from Below, which is not actually the worst. However your 2007 Resident Genius opened on first turn Kird Ape, second turn two Kird Apes. I manage a third turn Magus but he ho hums it with a Char (I ask if that doesn’t seem excessive and he tells me to shut up and take my beating like a man); I comply.
0-1
Game 2
On this one I have the first turn Magus with Gemstone Caverns, but obviously that just means that Mark will lead on Seal of Fire rather than Kird Ape. I have another Magus and he responds with Llanowar Elves and Rift Bolt. I have a triple big dredge the next turn but not actually a win… The Rift Bolt fires, slaying my Magus, and I have no action and am down cards. Mark plays Solifuge and Char, winning up around 20.
0-2
Game 3
Mark leads on Llanowar Elves. I play a second turn Lore Broker, scaring that pansy out of The Red Zone. He simply plays a Call of the Herd. I make triple Bridge from Below the next turn and kill him. Interestingly Mark had no idea what my deck did up until this game and was very confused as the digital objects floated around the screen. “Oh, that’s not good,” was the extent of his usually witty trash talk, in response to my third turn kill.
1-2
Game 4
I mull to five and go for the turn 0 Gemstone Caverns, removing Life from the Loam, which is my only Dredge card. I think this is right because otherwise Gemstone Caverns is poor, and this way I can play a first turn Lore Broker, holding the Magus of the Bazaar in reserve. I play into both Drowned Rusalka and Magus the next turn, but am unable to produce no advancement for want of a Dredge spell. Meanwhile Mark has double Scab-Clan Mauler, which beat on me for two turns before I start eating Chars.
1-3
Game 5
Mark opens on a good attack but has no interaction, so it looks like it will be a repeat of Game 3. My Magus and Lore Broker are unmolested and while I am under pressure, I am able to assemble quad Bridge, Narcomoeba and can obviously go for the Zealot kill.
“Wait.”
“I am trying to make tokens here.”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Char my Elf.”
“I don’t have an Elf.”
“Char my Elf.”
“Oh… it’s not even your turn!”
I have a Zealot.
Good.
Game.
Jerk.
1-4
Game 6
In what is a recurring theme for this deck, I mulligan to five yet again. I don’t complain, but Mark has plenty of comments regarding this one. Here are the highlights:
1. “Your deck is a joke,” and…
2. “This is easily the most disruptable deck in the history of Magic: The Gathering.”
1-5
Game 7
I come back by assembling all four Bridges but no Zealot for a non-lethal victory that takes two or three attacks. “I drew zero,” is not actually an acceptable analysis because since when is turn 2 Tin Street Hooligan, turn 3 Tin Street Hooligan “zero”? Exactly!
2-5
Game 8
Tin Street Hooligan once again rears its ugly head on turn 2, this time following a sort of defensive first turn Rift Bolt. Ho hum. I win on turn 3.
3-5
Game 9
He just attacks me DI. Is this a joke deck?
3-6
Game 10
I mull to six, and Mark also mulls. I have Stinkweed Imp but no velocity-making guy and get beat up by Tin Street and a Call of the Herd token. It’s conceivable that I could have won this one but I’m not sure how (I was by this point falling asleep on account of it being late) but we walked through the last game together and Mark didn’t think that any awfulness on my part was material because of my lack of a utility man (he had burn anyway). His hand ended up being Solifuge and Char, which would have been more than enough.
3-7
“That seems about right.”
Mark has threatened to write his own account of these games next week (that is possibly news to you, Craig [I’ll believe it when I see it… – Craig.]), and where we differ you can attribute it to either Mark’s tiredness or my inebriation (or the reverse).
Analysis:
Peter’s StarCityGames.com Gruul deck was very basic and serviceable. Like I said, I think Scorched Rusalka would be a good addition given the possible popularity of the Dredge decks. In case you don’t understand how this works, the Dredge deck needs Bridge from Below – preferably two or more copies active – in order to do anything worth writing articles about. The limitation on Bridge from Below is that if the opponent has a creature deposited in the graveyard… Well, let’s just say you had best hope your Grave-Trolls can get there because every other card in the deck is between 0/1 and 1/2 in dangerousness. Okay, you can technically play Simian Spirit Guide, either off a Spirit Guide or Gemstone Caverns. Open Scorched Rusalka is so dangerous because the Dredge deck really has to commit a lot of resources before it will force any deck to do anything, and with an open Rusalka, Gruul can clear any and all available Bridges. The Gruul deck typically has so much tempo heads up, and the Dredge deck usually doesn’t do anything that legitimately affects the board until the turn it wins.
From the other side of the table, I generally dislike Giant Solifuge in this metagame. It seems to cost so much mana and do so little, but the card was gas in this matchup, though it could have been a lot of different things and still been effective. To be fair, I never had good blocks for it. Last year I played a Boros deck with 20 lands including three Karoos. Peter’s version of Gruul seemed to have exactly enough lands for the cards he chose to play.
I think Gruul would be a fine deck to play at Regionals. As I said, it is my current number two option after Go-Sis. I would not recommend Dredge. It seems like if the opponent has any kind of a clue, or has even heard of Dredge and knows that it will, or even could be a numbers factor, it is hard pressed to win on anything save savage lucksackery.
We should have one more pre-Regionals instalment before the big day in the U.S… Until then!
LOVE
MIKE