Blue gets a new Force of Will, and a bunch of tosh for Johnny to puzzle over.
THE END
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This article came out a little weirder than I expected. I was only going to use the Grand Prix stuff as a brief introduction, but my mind is so focused on the forthcoming weekend it ended up squeezing out the rest of the article. As it’s nearly midnight and I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning, we’re just going to have to go with what we’ve got.
We apologise for the change in the listed schedule… yadda yadda… return to us next week when we throw "smug" Blue and "honest" Green in the same bear pit and watch them tear chunks out of each other.
Seriously, are there any other two colors in Magic that represent such extremes in the people who play them?
In an attempt to impose some order on this mess I’m now going to say this is a look at the Grand Prix taking place this weekend. I’m going to throw out some predictions and inevitably curse them into never occurring.
Hey wait, I can use this to my advantage.
Prediction #0.5 – I won’t make day two.
Haha, now that’s gaming the system.
Anyway, part the second. The other thing I’m going to talk about is the Grand Prix I chose to play (not the one you might have thought) and some of the thought processes involved in selecting a deck for a format that just had a nuclear bomb set off inside it.
Did that give it away?
Yep, Prof is off to Legacy-ville, next stop Hulk-Flash
Prediction #3.14 – Lots of people will get uppity and throw brickbats at me in the forums for daring to talk about “their” format.
To be honest, although I’ll be talking about Hulk-Flash, this isn’t really a Legacy article. I’m more interested in the abstract problem of choosing a deck for a format where one deck seems considerably stronger going in than all others. You could just as easily substitute “Legacy” and “Hulk-Flash” with “Mirrodin Block Constructed” and “Affinity” or “Time Spiral Block Constructed” and “White Weenie.”
Legacy? Strasbourg isn’t Legacy. Isn’t that…
Yes, in a moment of madness I decided to book a ticket to Columbus rather than Strasbourg. There were a number of reasons that all seemed plausible at the time.
Strasbourg didn’t really appeal to me, and the main reason was the cost of the flight. The cheapest flight I found from Manchester was just under £200 (about $400 or €300 depending on exchange rates). This is to France, you know, the country that would be right next to us if they ever fill the Channel in. I know Europe doesn’t like us much (and given the abominations we send to the Eurovision Song Contest I can kind of understand them), but that flight is a little more extortionate than I would normally pay to a Grand Prix in central Europe.
For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to find a cheaper option. Options included flying out from another airport or flying to Paris and then taking the TGV to Strasbourg. These weren’t exactly preferable as the journey would have taken a lot longer, and both rail networks are so extortionate I probably wouldn’t be saving that much in any case. Anyone wondering why so few Brits ever attend GPs need only look at how much it costs to get anywhere in this stupid rip-off country.
The other strike against Strasbourg is I’m not too comfortable with the Time Spiral Block Constructed format. I wish it had been held a week later to allow Future Sight in to shake things up a bit. Currently I anticipate a fairly stale format with control decks a la Heezy or Wafo-Tapa desperately trying to get their matches finished within the fifty minute round limit. When I was testing block in Stockholm with the other Brits, and ruthlessly denying Danny Nuttall a booster on the gunslinging tables because I’m that kind of evil, the only deck we found that troubled Heezy’s Yokohama deck was a B/R/u control deck similar to Karsten’s. And that matchup went looooong.
GP: Strasbourg Prediction #1 – There will be many draws.
GP: Strasbourg Prediction #2 – There will be a very late finish on Sunday.
Have fun, Rich Hagon. You may finish the podcast by Tuesday.
I nearly managed to assemble a back-up plan. Both Noel Bresland and Keith Spragg had secured three byes at trials. The best plan I could come up with was for us to drive down to Stansted on Thursday and join the other Brits flying out with Ryanair to Karlsruhe-Baden (just across the border). Unfortunately, the fascistic dictators known as HR intervened and neither Keith nor Noel could get the time off work. I could have taken the train down, but then I would have got stranded at the airport on Monday night as our rail system is both overpriced and useless. Losing virtually an entire week when I only wanted to travel to France for the weekend felt excessive.
I wanted to play the Grand Prix, but this was one of those situations where I needed to be realistic. It was expensive and awkward and, despite being Constructed, I didn’t fancy myself in the field.
Reality chomped down and said I should probably be working on my PhD that weekend.
Then I inexplicably booked a flight to Columbus, somewhere that was even more expensive to get to, for a format I can’t remember if I’ve ever played competitively in my life.
It was not complete lunacy. I did have a plan and, as bizarre as it sounds, the emergence of the Hulk-Flash decks was the trigger. You might think this odd, as the prevailing belief is that the hysteria about the deck will drive people away from attending the Grand Prix.
I’m not going to lie. My original intention was to do a smash and grab on the field with Hulk-Flash.
GP: Strasbourg Prediction #3 – There will be a lot more players than at Columbus
My reasoning was that the deck looked as broken as Trix. Yeah, the tournament is going to be fairly random, but I have 3 byes and that’s the key factor. I also have a soft spot for combo decks and have played similar decks (Trix, Pebbles) in the past.
Let’s compare Strasbourg and Columbus.
In Strasbourg the field is a known quantity, as it is the same as the last Pro Tour. It will almost certainly be heavily biased towards control mirrors. Control mirrors are one of the weakest aspects of my game, most likely putting me in the underdog role. I’m guessing there will be over a thousand players as well. This means a nine round Day 1, and also that 7-2 alone might not be sufficient to guarantee a place in Day 2 (I really wish they’d fix this).
In Columbus the field is a known quantity, as it will be dominated by a grotesquely powerful combo deck. Combo decks are a reasonably strong point of my game, and as everyone is playing the same broken deck my chances are the same as everyone else. There will be around 400-500 players. This means an eight round Day 1 with a 6-2 record probably guaranteeing a berth in Day 2.
Columbus is definitely the more attractive prospect, but is it worth the cost? Especially as everyone is playing the same deck.
In this case it’s simple numbers, and the fact I have three byes.
In Strasbourg I’d have to play six rounds of mostly unfavorable matchups in the knowledge that two losses could prevent me from advancing to Day 2.
In Columbus I’d have to play five rounds of roughly even matchups and I’d be gambling that the coin flip came down in my favor three out of those five times. It might even be better than that, as there is always the possibility of picking up a free matchup against someone who didn’t get the memo.
So I decided to risk the gamble. The main strength of playing a broken combo is you don’t really have to worry too much about what other decks are doing. Things like Goblins are just dead, as they can’t kill you in time. There’s a chance of losing coinflip mirrors, but as long as it wasn’t more than two losses I’d be in Day 2 and already making up for the additional cost to go to Columbus.
That was what I thought, anyway…
Then I started playing with the deck.
80% turn 1 kills? I’m sorry, but that’s just bullsh**.
The deck does have some grotesquely powerful draws. I mean, there’s pretty much nothing another deck can do on the draw against an opening hand of Flash, Protean Hulk, Force of Will, Daze, Lotus Petal, and any land, unless they got lucky and draw two Force of Will.
GP: Columbus Prediction #1 – There will be turn 1 kills, but not as many as people expect.
GP: Columbus Prediction #2 – There will be more copies of Force of Will than any other card.
But you also get a lot of "nothing" hands and can sometimes mulligan the deck into oblivion.
I arranged a playtest session with some of the local guys who actually play Legacy reasonably regularly, and got stamped flat by a hulk-hating Gro deck, repeatedly. As a combo deck it is grotesquely powerful, but it is still a combo deck in an environment where aggro-control decks have been beating up combo for years. I was expecting a situation like with Trix, where lots of people deluded themselves they had decks that could beat the undisputed best deck. Instead it seemed very apparent that a dedicated amount of hate could comfortably bring the deck down.
This made things a lot more prickly.
In the past I’ve waltzed into PTQs with a combination of Necros, Force of Will, Illusions of Grandeur, and Donate, and known that 90% of the people in the room might as well change their name to BYE.
Fast forward to the present, and the Sideboard reporter in me thinks Columbus might actually be fascinating.
GP: Columbus Prediction #3 – The Grand Prix will be more interesting than people initially thought.
The player in me, who’s just spent £500 on a flight and hotel, is currently terrified. Just what exactly is the field going to be? If I take Hulk am I going to face a sea of hate worse than what hit the White decks in Yokohama? If I go for the anti-Hulk option am I going to drop too many matches against people who just thought "screw it" and went with their favorite Legacy deck anyway?
GP: Columbus Prediction #4 – Some players are going to be very upset when a ten-year-old kid takes their lovingly crafted anti-Hulk deck to pieces with bog-standard Goblins.
One of the things I find amusing (because I’m evil, remember) is seeing people complain bitterly after their hate deck loses to something else.
“Hmmph, but how do you beat <insert name of current consensus best deck>”
Doesn’t matter… they beat you.
For that reason, I think it’s usually best to play the best deck rather than try to hate it. However, that prospect becomes far less appealing when there is a good chance you could hit hate matchup after hate matchup.
I wonder how many people have said in the last week, “I don’t care what I play as long as it pounds Hulk-Flash into the ground.”
If ever there was a tournament to prove Richard Feldman Glass Cannon theory, then Columbus stands the best chance.
All of this, of course, makes everything a massive gamble, far more than the “it’s a lottery but I start 3-0 up” gamble I was thinking of. If I misjudge the field then it’s five rounds of charging up a hillside laced with caltrops followed by a day of helping BDM with the coverage. Or maybe gunslinging. I like gunslinging.
GP: Columbus Prediction #5 – Someone will win with a Hulk-Flash deck, and everyone will say it isn’t even a good listing.
I always like that. Everyone is always convinced their listing is better because of A and B.
Another interesting aspect to the forthcoming Columbus Grand Prix is that there doesn’t appear to be a consensus "best build" of the best deck. The amount of variation in Hulk listings is staggering, and I don’t have the faintest idea which one is the best.
Assuming Hulk was still my weapon of choice (and I have to admit that rising tide of hate makes it more and more unpalatable), what decisions do I face as a deck builder? What are the pros and cons?
There are two schools of thought as to how the deck should administer the final blow…
One school uses the Hulk to put four Disciple of the Vault and seven zero-casting-cost 0/0 artifact creatures into play. They all die, and the Disciples trigger to cause an opponent to lose 28 points of life (the life loss is important, as it means you still kill even through things like Worship).
The second uses a complicated kill where you fetch Karmic Guide and Carrion Feeder. The Guide fetches back Hulk, Feeder eats it to fetch Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and then you set up a cycle of copying Guide with Kiki-Jiki, sac’ing Kiki-Jiki in response and then fetching Kiki-Jiki back with the copy to repeat the cycle. The end result is an army of hasty Karmic Guide copies screaming across the red zone for the win.
Body Snatcher can be added to the combo to get stuck Kiki-Jikis or Karmic Guides out of hand, and as it costs four mana you can also fetch either Benevolent Bodyguard or Sylvan Safeguard to protect the pieces from removal like Swords to Plowshares.
None of this is particularly new information. The question is how we weigh up the merits of both strategies?
It has been argued that the Kiki-Jiki version is superior, as it requires less slots, and so more slots can be devoted to the protection of the combo.
The fallacy with this argument is that the Kiki-Jiki combo has more cards it needs to protect against. Extirpate on the Hulk in response to the Guide leaves the Hulk player with egg on the face. Pithing Needle stops Kiki-Jiki or Carrion Feeder. Even a simple Fog can put a spoke in this version.
In contrast, the Disciple version just kills you at instant speed, and there isn’t a great deal you can do about it once the Hulk trigger resolves.
However, the Disciple version can only deal a finite amount of damage, whereas Kiki-Jiki goes as close to infinite as you need.
In weighing up both options, I’d have to consider whether I was more worried about pushing Flash through or being spiked midway through the Kiki-combo. In the presence of both versions, true hate has to stop the Flash from resolving, which would favor Kiki-Jiki with more slots to push it though, but some decks don’t have that luxury and I foresee some unpleasant surprises happening in some matchups.
The next question is the chassis around the combo.
In this case, you have a choice to go for blistering quick kills or stock up on protection and go for the slower and surer kill. Initially, the slower method seems better, as the fast version might go off on turn 1 (or turn 0!) more consistently, but is stopped very easily by a single Force of Will.
But again, I think this issue is less clear-cut than it seems. The longer you leave it, the more cards come into play that you have to worry about. In the face of complete and utter dedicated hate, playing the game of “do you have a Force of Will or not?” might be the best strategy, as the odds of winning decrease dramatically past turn 1, even with all the extra protection.
All of these choices and decisions mean that the forthcoming Grand Prix might not be the unmitigated disaster people are expecting. Sure, it will be warped by Flash, but there seem to be plenty of choices and decisions to give the players most prepared to adapt an edge.
Now let’s compare the two Grand Prix from my point of view again.
In Strasbourg, I’d have to play six rounds of mostly unfavorable matchups in the knowledge that two losses could prevent me from advancing to Day 2.
In Columbus the field is a mixture of varying versions of Hulk, anti-Hulk, and assorted “normal” decks. Depending on which deck I take and what matchups I face, I could either get an easy ride or get battered right out of the tournament.
In one respect, this is good (or bad depending on your viewpoint), as it puts control of my own fate back in my hands. If I predict the metagame correctly, or have the right version of the right deck, then I’m likely to be rewarded with a higher finish. But on the other hand, if I guess the metagame wrong then I’m left with a very expensive long weekend.
On this occasion we have to look at my previous experience of the Legacy format (does playing Trix half a decade ago count?), and conclude that everyone having control of their own fate again puts me in a much weaker position.
Someone got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and probably wishes he’d held off on booking that flight.
For the onlookers, this is all really interesting. Hulk-Flash is really powerful, but is it powerful enough to survive in a field where every man, woman, dog, and child is looking to smash its face in? And given a field where every man, woman, dog, and child is looking to smash Hulk’s face in, could an opportunistic predator take advantage and prey on the hate?
On one hand, I feel sorry for the Legacy community as Grand Prix: Columbus probably isn’t the tournament they wanted, but on the other I think it could be a fascinating tournament to see unfold. (Unless, of course, Hulk smashes everything in sight).
And no, I don’t have a deck. Anyone want to volunteer one?
See you all in Columbus.
Prof