Jacob’s Ladder – Playtesting

Playtesting. The part of Magic everyone loves to try and hates to see the results of. You have a
Linchpin,
and you’ve fleshed out a deck based on sound theory. Now to take it for a ride and see if you have an Aston Martin or an AMC Pacer.

All it takes is another player and a few test decks. It’s important to have a variety of decks, ones that hopefully attack from different angles. Testing against someone’s brew is not as helpful, but any testing is better than none at all.

A lot of people believe that grinding forty games straight in marathon sessions is the way to go. This process definitely takes a lot of patience and effort — words I certainly hate as much as the next sedentary Magic Grinder. Luckily, it can actually be much easier to do, and in just a few hours (or less), you can get all the information you need to go back to the drawing board.

When starting a new brew, keep the kiddie gloves on and stick to pre-sideboarded games. You aren’t playing in the championships quite yet, as
you’re still just learning the ropes. Mistakes are
encouraged, and
no takebacks should be allowed.
The purpose of the games is
not
to win, but to, see what works (and what doesn’t). You and your opponent should discuss every controversial play, and if an obvious misplay is made, then point it out.

When battling with your weapon of choice, here are the things you should be looking for:

1. Type of opening hands to keep

This is pretty straightforward. Figure out which hands are keepable. Some are very easy mulligans, like all lands or all spell hands, and the ones in the middle are similarly easy. It’s the fringe cases that give pause, where whether you should mulligan is something you learn through practice.

Five land + two spells on the play

Two land + five spells on the play

One land + six spells on the draw

Best possible hand (missing a color)

I know a lot of these are matchup dependent, but try to imagine you don’t know what your opponent is playing. This means: don’t snap keep three Lightning Bolts + four Mountains in your R/G Ramp deck just because you’re currently playtesting against Goblin Guide + Plated Geopede.dec. You would mulligan that hand against any other deck (and even against Mono-Red, it’s shady). Testing hands like that is for far later in the process, specifically post-board games where you know what your opponent is playing.

Mulliganing is an integral part of tournament Magic, and it’s impossible to have tournament success without an understanding of it. Magic is a game of both skill and luck, and part of the skill is minimizing the variance. Yes, sometimes you have to mulligan twice on the play, and yes, it sucks. Understand, though, that the reason you mulliganed was because you
didn’t have a chance to win with those hands. With a new, smaller hand, you’re hoping you
actually
have a chance. You’re actually
gaining
percentage, not losing it.

2. Under-performing cards

These are a bit tricky to spot, as they’re camouflaged by mediocrity. These are the ones that are in your opening hand but you just can’t find a place to play them, as they‘re outclassed every turn by something better. Here are two examples:

You’re playing a U/G/r Comet Storm deck, and while you lead with a turn 2 Lotus Cobra, your opponent plops down a Joraga Treespeaker, two Forests, and levels it.

You quickly untap your lands, draw your card, and play a Scalding Tarn. Triggering your landfall, your opponent is crestfallen as you pay one life. You fetch out a Mountain and tap all your mana, and the fear is in his eyes.

“Comet Storm the Treespeaker and you for two.”

Your opponent smiles and puts his creature in the graveyard and takes four. That was not a Jace, or an Oracle, or an Explore into a Titan.

(This is why I took out Comet Storm for Chandra Nalaar; she’s been great.)

Kird Ape in Zoo (before it became Rubin Zoo)

This was back when Ravnica dual lands were in Extended. Zoo was the default aggro deck in the format, and everyone just auto-included Kird Ape without thinking about it. Testing showed us that if you have Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape in your opening hand, you play the Nacatl (surprise!). Turn 2 rolls around, and now you cast a two-drop like Tarmogoyf instead of Kird Ape as well. Then turn 3, Knight of the Reliquary. A turn 4 Kird Ape impressed no one. After being sick of drawing Kird Ape for the hundredth time, we decided to cut him for Noble Hierarch, which was fine on any turn of the game, and was often better than Tarmogoyf on turn 2!

3. Over-performing cards

Cards that you just cannot get enough of. These are actually easy to spot, as you’re happy to cast them, and your opponent rues that you “always have it.” Frost Titan and Preordain are great examples, as they look so incredibly average on paper, but in practice are actually terrific.

4. Paths to victory (and defeat)

Patterns emerge after just a few games, and you can predict the outcomes based on certain conditions.

For instance, you’re testing a Mono-Green Eldrazi deck. After a few games, you observe:

Victory:

• Every time you summon Primeval Titan and attack with it, you easily win.

• You’re heavily favored to win if you have two Overgrown Battlements in the opening hand.

• Summoning Trap either wins the game or does nothing at all. Perhaps some more targets are needed.

Defeat:

• An early planeswalker is extremely difficult to defeat.

• Keeping a hand without acceleration is a recipe for disaster.

• Mulligans very poorly, so you need to keep sketchier opening hands.

A matchup specific point is this:

You’re heavily favored to win if you play a Jace, the Mind Sculptor turn 3 on the play, but not against a Goblin Guide and a Plated Geopede. Maybe you had a Mana Leak you could’ve kept open, but the default play of turn 2 Explore into turn 3 Jace is Plan A, so you went with that. A mistake was made, and a lesson was learned. With this info, you’ll know what to do when facing down a Goblin Guide in the future.

5. Subtle Interactions

This usually has more to deal with how you can preempt or positively interact with your opponent’s cards than your own. These are commonly referred to as blowouts. This is difficult to explain without the use of Firestone tires, so here are two examples.

Your opponent plays a turn 3 Kargan Dragonlord and levels it up. Confidently, he plays a Teetering Peaks targeting it and levels it three more times. You respond to the last level with a Lightning Bolt. You’ve
blown him out.

Say you’re playing a R/G Valakut deck in Standard and have the following opening hand:

Raging Ravine, Evolving Wilds, Explore, Mountain, Mountain, Oracle of Mul Daya, Primeval Titan.

What a great hand! Your opponent leads with an Island, and you lead with Raging Ravine. Your opponent then plays another Island and casts Spreading Seas on your Raging Ravine. Oh dear.

You didn’t draw an untapped green source, and you’re forced to play the Evolving Wilds the next turn, and you’re an entire turn behind the rest of the game. Your opponent has
blown you out.

If you’d just led with Evolving Wilds, not only would your opponent have been unable to Spread your Seas, but you’d be able to play Explore into Raging Ravine. It’d probably still get turned into an Island, but by then, you have an Oracle in play, and she’ll be more than enough to ride to victory.

6. Back to the drawing board

After four or five games against a few different decks, you should have a good idea of what you should take out and where your deck needs work.

Again, as always, I hate all theory articles, so here it is, put into practice.

In between some rounds judging FNM at my local store, RIW Hobbies, I proxied up and played with the R/G Destructive Force deck from my previous article. Here it is, for reference:

I tested against a U/R/G Comet Storm deck, a Mono-White Tempered Steel Aggro deck, a Mono-Red Aggro deck, and a Mono-Blue Control deck, about four games each. Took less than two hours total because the emphasis on testing is speed, and not over thinking plays.

Mulligans

The deck mulliganed very poorly, and I usually had to keep even the sketchiest of hands. I had to ship every hand without green mana or with two Tectonic Edges. A close keeper I discovered was five lands, Explore, Lightning Bolt on the play.

Under-Performing Cards

• Tectonic Edge was actually a huge nonbo with Destructive Force, because if I used it, I couldn’t even cast the namesake sorcery. I used it maybe once in all the games.

• Koth looked so good on paper. The problem was: turn 3 Koth, turn 4 Destructive Force wasn’t even good, as not only did I need another Mountain to do anything at all, but a mere Lightning Bolt or two-power creature ruined me. I also had little defense, and he was embarrassing when facing down creatures of any variety.

• Everflowing Chalice, I never wanted to cast it for two, as I had two more lands in hand, and I needed the double acceleration into six mana. Strictly worse than Khalni Heart Expedition.

• Primeval Titan surprisingly wasn’t very good. I had no idea before, but you really need either Valakut or Eye of Ugin to grab with this guy or he’s just very average. I’d cast this guy, attack, and still lose!

• Rootbound Crag seems silly in an R/G deck, but was actually not very good. Post-Destructive Force, you generally do
  not
  have a Mountain or Forest, making it enter the battlefield tapped. The first time you play a turn 1 Raging Ravine and want to cast a turn 2 Explore, you realize that Copperline Gorge would be way better.

• Flame Slash — spot removal is needed, but this is not the ticket. This doesn’t kill anything Destructive Force doesn’t already, and we need every card to count.

Over-Performing Cards

• Chandra Nalaar always did exactly what I wanted, killing creatures big and small and providing some much needed advantage.

• Garruk Wildspeaker, ditto.

• Destructive Force sounds silly, but it’s even better than advertised. I love it.

• Raging Ravine was awesome because he was the only way to deal with opposing planeswalkers, and he did it well. A big reason why Destructive Force decks should be G/R/x.

• Pyroclasm was awesome. A lot of aggro decks cannot play around it, and it’s always a blowout (killing two or three creatures).

Paths to Victory

I won all games where I cast Destructive Force, or had a turn 3 Garruk followed up with some Ravines and Bolts. Neither happened very often, but I don’t think it’s their fault, as the deck had a plethora of poor card choices. The deck seemed pretty decent against creature-based strategies.

Deck Weaknesses

• Planeswalkers were a huge problem, and Koth wasn’t nearly good enough.

• All six-drops were unbeatable, as my removal wasn’t suited to defeating them.

• Molten-Tail Masticore was game over; I had zero ways to remove him.

• Counterspells were a huge problem, as there were so few ways to win.

• Very inconsistent. Having to keeping sketchy hands is a huge problem.

• Drawing multiple Destructive Forces was bad news, as you had no way to use a second.

Subtle Interactions

Garruk against decks with Lightning Bolt — You generally do
not
want your Garruk to be a 3/3 on its first activation, as a burn spell sends you crying, left with a 3/3 beast that you cannot use effectively. This guy should almost always be on untap duty.

Everflowing Chalice and Destructive Force — These look like they have synergy, but actually are a rather huge nonbo. Say you cast turn 4 chalice for two, then cast Destructive Force. You have to sacrifice five lands… which are all you have! You’re left with two colorless mana, and you can’t do much with that. The first time this happened, I knew Chalice would be gone.

Koth and opposing creatures — He doesn’t play defense well at all.

Evolving Wilds and Spreading Seas — Same as stated earlier, lead with the fetchlands if possible.

Back to the Drawing Board

Armed with knowledge, we now take the deck back to the drawing board. Cutting the cards that were terrible, we’re left with this core:

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Chandra Nalaar
4 Explore
4 Cultivate
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pyroclasm
3 Destructive Force
4 Raging Ravine
8 Mountain
6 Forest
3 Copperline Gorge
2 Evolving Wilds
4 (lands)

The deck looks pretty gutted, but the shell is there. After finding which parts didn’t fit, we’re left with nothing to replace them with. Red and green don’t offer what we need to fill in the missing pieces, but another color does, blue. It solves all of the problems I observed:

• Defeating opposing non-creature permanents (Into the Roil, Mana Leak)

• A resilient, powerful win condition that can beat other six-drops (Frost Titan, Mana Leak)

• Inconsistency (Preordain, Jace, the Mind Sculptor)

• A powerful four-drop to replace Koth (Jace, the Mind Sculptor)

Fortunately, there’s ample mana-fixing available in Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn, and our mana base already had some open slots that could be Islands. The result is:

I know you guys are looking for lists to play in States with, so I included a theoretical sideboard and some areas to look at when trying this deck for yourself.

1. Look to see if there are enough win conditions. See if you can fit another Garruk.

2. Cultivate and Explore, one of them should probably be a four-of, but I don’t know quite yet which one. Also see if Khalni Heart would be better than either.

3. See if the Pyroclasm or Ratchet Bomb should switch to the other. I’ve been pleased with one of each, as they’re both much worse in multiples, but Pyroclasm is certainly less versatile.

4. Make sure you’re happy casting Chandra Nalaar. She may not be good enough and could be a Frost Titan or a Garruk.

5. The land destruction is for ramp decks, as you can lock them out in combination with Jace’s -1. This was effective in Zendikar Block.

I look forward to people winning their States with U/R/G.

P.S. Column name any good? Let me know in the forums.

DarkestMage

No one can fight the tide forever.