The SCG Open Series went to Nashville this past weekend and heralded the return of some true grinders. The Top 8 of the Standard Event featured multiple members of Team #SCGBlue and resulted in the best players in the room coming out on top with the best list for the best deck. To say that Delver was dominant would be an understatement, putting a full six copies into the Top 8. My good buddy William Cruse happened to make it into the spotlight with his B/R Zombies deck after putting up a Top 16 finish at Grand Prix Minneapolis the week before, while avid Shimmering Grotto enthusiast Gerry Thompson decided to put away the barely playable Limited mana fixer in favor of Geist of Saint Traft and Snapcaster Mage.
After working on the deck with a few awesome people like Charles Gindy and Brian Braun-Duin, the team turned the deck into a warhorse and just obliterated the tournament. While Gerry took home the trophy we put a whopping three of the lists into the Top 4, proving that teamwork can dominate tournament play. We will continue to innovate…
Wait. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. I’m a part of the team, sure, but I sort of went out on a tangent and played a deck that I really had fun playing with leading up to the tournament, ignoring everything in my gut that told me to play Delver. I just wasn’t going to do it because Birthing Pod is fun. These tournaments are awesome because you can occasionally get away with playing whatever you want, so long as your deck is powerful and your list is tuned. However, this was not one of those tournaments. Sure, my RUG Birthing Pod deck was “good,” but even I would have been lying if had I told you I was going to win the tournament.
I didn’t feel it, but I didn’t listen to myself either. We had done some playtesting with Delver earlier in the week and the Restoration Angels felt pretty bonkers in the deck, giving you some sweet threats against decks that lacked hard removal as well as a virtual Plumeveil that could attack. In addition to all of this, it will often let you rebuy Snapcaster Mage, getting additional value out of your already amazing creature.
I should have just played Delver but something held me back, and I’m pretty sure it was my inability to listen to my friends. Or maybe I just made up my mind too soon. I’d been testing with this sweet RUG Birthing Pod deck on Magic Online, and it was doing very well. For reference, here is what I played in Nashville:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 2 Borderland Ranger
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 1 Wurmcoil Engine
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 1 Deceiver Exarch
- 3 Phantasmal Image
- 1 Daybreak Ranger
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
- 3 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 2 Zealous Conscripts
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
I’m not going to get into how the deck works. If you want to know, you can check out my video on RUG Pod from yesterday. The list is a little different, but it plays out pretty similarly. What I did know was that I didn’t want to listen to anyone else. After all, none of them had tested with RUG Pod, and I just went 4-0 in a Daily Event (hardly a justification, but one I use far too often)! I was locked in. So why was I getting cold feet?
I used to have this really bad habit of calling audibles right before tournaments. After hours of testing I would find a good deck with a solid plan and decent matchups, but then I would think of something cool and just throw everything out the window, moving all-in on some weird strategy. It started with Death Cloud back at Regionals in 2004. You see, I had been planning on playing some sweet deck featuring Arc Slogger and Shrapnel Blast, but for some reason I just kept losing to random decks. So, instead of just trying to improve a good deck, I set to brewing the night before in our hotel room.
I was notorious for staying up late before tournaments then playing the entirety of the next day on virtually no sleep. This night was no different. I sat down and started picking through the boxes of commons, uncommons, and rares I had brought with me. I knew what I wanted to play, and I knew what I wanted my deck to do. The problem was building the perfect shell to fit all the pieces. I knew I wanted to cast Rampant Growth and Sakura-Tribe Elder on turn 1 with Chrome Mox, and I wanted to cast Death Cloud as quickly as possible. The rest, as they say, is history.
The deck looked something like this:
4 Rampant Growth
4 Kodama’s Reach
2 Persecute
4 Death Cloud
2 Plow Under
3 Terror
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Eternal Witness
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Iwamori of the Open Fist
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 Chrome Mox
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
11 Forest
7 Swamp
After building a sweet list featuring a full set of Kokusho, the Evening Star and Plow Under, I started off the tournament 7-1. When I sat down for my win-and-in for the Top 8, I couldn’t have been more nervous. This was one of the few large tournaments I had attended in my career, and I really wanted to try and qualify for Nationals. My opponent was playing Mono Red, and we split the first two games with him nut drawing me in the first game followed by a blowout Death Cloud in the second.
In our final game, I had him dead on board after a Kokusho attack followed by a Death Cloud for X=3 while I was at nine, and he was at eight. Since I would sacrifice my Kokusho and drain him for the last five damage, I felt the tingle. I had done it! I had won the game! He was tapped out, and there was nothing he could do!
Except he discarded a pair of Guerilla Tactics to kill me.
I tell you that story so I can tell you this story. The night before the SCG Open Series: Washington, DC earlier this year, I did something very similar. Everyone was set on playing various decks, and I wanted to play Delver of Secrets. The problem was that I didn’t want to play Illusions. I also didn’t want to play Invisible Stalker. I wanted to be as aggressive as possible, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted Porcelain Legionnaire.
I began laying out my deck, beginning with Delver of Secrets and Legionnaire, along with ways to protect them from all the cheap removal running around the format. Mental Misstep was a card that few people were playing at the time and most people still refuse to play today (for whatever reason). I also dug around for something else. Something that would punish my opponents for playing Whipflare and Slagstorm. Something that would allow my smaller creatures to survive Gut Shot. The answer?
As some of you know, I went on to win that tournament, but it was a bit unhealthy for my ego. I had brewed up my deck the night before and played the tournament on virtually no sleep. I had hit the nail on the head, and from that point forward I stopped listening. I stopped hearing what other people had to say and began brewing for myself by myself. I didn’t think anyone else really understood a lot of the same concepts that I did and that their interpretations led them down incorrect paths. I kept finding cards that felt just right in certain decks that few people would think of. I wanted people talking about my deck. It was addictive, and I wasn’t really sure how to stop.
I started to care more about recognition and being unique than winning tournaments.
All I wanted to do was prove myself, and the best way that I could do that was standing out from the crowd (in one way or another). Sure, sometimes those two things go hand in hand, but being a rogue comes with a price. You will often be laughed at for your card choices. You will often lose because of those choices. You will often be disregarded because of those choices. But the one time where you prove them all wrong just feels like justice! But is it worth it?Â
God knows I’ve had a fair share of humility shoved down my throat over the last few months, but this time it didn’t really sit right. I watched all of my friends in the limelight, and I realized I was jealous. They had come together and formed an almost-perfect decklist, crushing the entire tournament and leaving me in their wake. I had broken off on my own and learned the hard way that it is much easier to survive as a group than as an individual. Maybe that’s what I’ve needed to learn for my entire life.
Always the outsider. Always the survivor. Always alone.
But what if it didn’t have to be that way? These people that I’ve surrounded myself with are genuinely intelligent, driven people that all have a common goal: success. Whether or not that success lies in winning tournaments, these people are all amazing and I’m glad that I don’t have to do it by myself anymore. I think that I’m a classic example of someone that doesn’t really understand how to function in a group because I’ve always been the entire group.
Testing for Barcelona was the first time I’ve ever had a dedicated group of people helping me prepare for anything, and I think I just forgot how important it is to have people around who will constantly challenge me, regardless of whether or not the subject is Magic. I need checks and balances. I crave structure. Without it, I’m left to my own devices, and some of the results aren’t very pretty.
After Gerry Thompson won the SCG Standard Open in Nashville with the Team #SCGBlue Delver deck, I felt a tainted sense of pride and remorse. These were my friends, and but I didn’t contribute much to this victory. So I took a step back. The next morning, as I was building my G/W Maverick deck for the SCG Legacy Open, I sat down next to Gerry and we had this exchange:
Me: I don’t know why I didn’t just play Delver. I was just such an idiot.
GT: You did exactly what I did at the Pro Tour. You tilted off and played a different deck.
Me: Yeah. Just don’t let me do that again, please.
GT: Yeah…same. Let’s keep each other in check.
After that exchange, I felt much better about myself and my future as a Magic player. I have someone who is really good at Magic taking a vested interest in my success, and I in his. As we both cruised into the Top 4 of the Legacy Open, we ended up facing off for a chance at the Finals against U/R Sneak Attack. We played a solid match, Gerry with his Dredge deck against my Maverick deck, where my draws in the final game were not ideal but not bad. He ended up grinding me out, but something had changed.
I didn’t actually lose.
Gerry won our match, but that mattered just as much as me winning. I wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t unhappy with my performance, and that is something I’ve never really felt before. My friend was moving on to the finals, and I was rooting for him the entire way. While he ended up falling just short of back-to-back wins, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in his accomplishment. It is something a little hard to describe, because the entire situation is rather alien to me. Sure, I will root for my friends, but I still want to win. I still want to beat them. That fact won’t ever change, but if I never feel bitter about losing again then I’ll be a better person for it. Perhaps this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
We haven’t always been the best of friends. In fact, we’ve had a scuffle or two, whether it was online or in a Waffle House parking lot. All that matters is what we do from here.
…
Speaking of Legacy, some people have asked me about Maverick over the last few days and about some of my crazier sideboard choices. I’m always looking to push the archetype forward, figuring out what cards are important in what matchups as well as discerning how to win when some decks become more popular than others. I will say that something about Maverick probably needs to change over the next few weeks in order to combat Show and Tell, because you have about ten or so cards that do literally nothing against combo which is just unacceptable.
For reference, here is my list from the Top 4 of the SCG Legacy Open in Nashville last weekend:
Creatures (25)
- 4 Mother of Runes
- 1 Scryb Ranger
- 2 Aven Mindcensor
- 1 Gaddock Teeg
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 3 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Scavenging Ooze
- 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- 1 Ulvenwald Tracker
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (23)
Spells (11)
This list would be completely insane for the metagame as it was during the last SCG Invitational. Maverick and RUG Delver were everywhere, and this is one of the best Maverick lists for a fair metagame. However, when the metagame revolves around putting an Emrakul into play in the second turn, then we have a few cards that could really be useful as something different.
An aside about a few of the more odd choices: I wanted to try out some new ideas at this tournament. Some were awesome, while others were mediocre. Each tournament should be used as a learning process, and this was no different.
Spike Feeder was used mainly as a way to help fend off Mono Red, since you really need something to buy you time. However, Spike Feeder is also a great card against Dredge because it can remove their Bridge from Below at will.
The lack of Enlightened Tutor has been a personal choice as of late. I don’t think that it helps enough in the matchups where you really want it. All it actually does is save sideboard space so that you can have 3-5 cards for every matchup you face, but I don’t think you really need that crutch. Going forward, with such a hostile combo-based metagame, that thinking could shift in order to help combat Show and Tell and Dredge.
The fourth Thalia in the sideboard was amazing and will probably end up in the maindeck. I almost always want to draw her, as she dominates any non-mirror. Alongside Wasteland she just strangles your opponent on mana, forcing them into a lot of awkward situations when it comes to killing her or Knight of the Reliquary / Scavenging Ooze.
Cavern of Souls is solid in Legacy thanks to a resurgence of Force of Will in combo decks. Naming Human, you can resolve Thalia, Knight of the Reliquary, or just a Mother or Runes or Noble Hierarch. It can act as a color-fixer on occasion, but it mostly functions as a way to guarantee you stick your best hoser against them. Ethersworn Canonist is also a Human!
Ulvenwald Tracker dominates the mirror as well as random other creature decks, but he looks absolutely foolish against anyone attempting to play a combo. I think he is good in theory and I will probably sideboard one for the mirror in the future, but unfortunately he just didn’t do anything for me during the tournament.
I like to gauge the power level of Maverick based on one certain statistic: how often do I attack with Mother of Runes? If the answer is, “More often than not,” then Mother of Runes isn’t very good. Mother of Runes can often function like a one-mana planeswalker with a really awesome set of abilities. She can protect your other creatures from removal, from opposing creatures in combat, and make certain creatures unblockable. On top of all that, she can attack and block. When she does all of these things regularly, then she is an amazing card. When she attacks for a few damage a game and nothing else, she is not a good card. During this tournament, I attacked with Mother of Runes far more often than holding her back, which meant that she probably isn’t good right now in the current metagame.
I know that fact can be a difficult one to swallow, but I honestly believe that Maverick needs to fundamentally change over the next few weeks in order to compete against opposing combo decks. Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, and Karakas can only get you so far. Eventually, someone is going to resolve a Show and Tell or Sneak Attack and just obliterate you. Sure, you can beat an Emrakul rather “easily,” but Griselbrand is an entirely different story. Hive Mind and Dream Halls are on another plane of existence entirely! Just praying for a good opening hand against them will only get you so far, and Thalia can only do so much to keep those decks in check.
Eventually we’re going to have to find another way to disrupt them. Show and Tell is an unreal card that is very hard for most “good stuff” decks to beat, because it allows them to do some very unfair things for a paltry amount of mana. Yes, I understand that the card is “symmetrical” in that it lets both players play a permanent for free. Newsflash: most decks don’t play fifteen-mana spells. We aren’t really playing on the same field.
The thing to remember about Maverick is that you can always add another color, change a few Tutor targets around, and tweak the deck to combat certain archetypes. While doing this definitely has consequences, like making your mana base more vulnerable to Wasteland, it does help you in the matchups where you have the most trouble. Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize are considerations for the next iteration of the deck, but I’m not entirely sure which direction I want to go just yet.
I love Maverick, and I will continue changing cards to help out certain matchups until someone can prove to me that another deck is better. All I know is that Wasteland and Green Sun’s Zenith are really good cards that most decks can’t handle, and I’m so very tired of being on the losing end of both. It just so happens that mono-blue combo decks don’t really care all that much about them either.
Thanks for reading!
Todd
strong sad on Magic Online
@strong_sad on Twitter