Hello folks! So this past week you guys didn’t see my smiling face grace the screens of your computer, smartphone, iPad, Kindle Fire, or whatever
else you lucky folks got for Christmas. The truth is, I asked Steve Sadin for a week off to deal with some personal issues. And, since those issues are
going to severely affect my writing in the future (hopefully in a positive way!), I figured I might as well get into that a bit before going
into some talk about Standard prior to the StarCityGames.com Standard Open: Atlanta this past weekend. (Note: I submit this article prior to Saturday,
so any and all hypotheses, guesses, and predictions are legitimate, and probably legitimately way off base, but we’ll see!)
As a few of you know already, I am a father of a one-year-old ball of joy named Zoey Anne Martin. She’s amazing in every way, and seeing her
makes my day every day. Her mother, Sarah, and I have been having some issues, however, and this past week I sat her down and let her know that I
didn’t want to continue in the relationship; there was no traumatic emotional event that occurred, just a general understanding that this
isn’t the direction that I want to take my life. While she’s still quite understandably upset, she also understands where I’m coming
from, and we’re working to figure out the best solution moving forward for Zoey and the other children.
Now why is this relevant to you guys, the readers of a Magic: The Gathering website? Well, for one, it means that I have a lot more time on my hands.
Now, while this is nowhere near the reason I decided to break things off, it is, however, a welcome byproduct. With that, I’ll have much more
time to play, test, and generally work through decks and formats that I just didn’t have time for before. I’m hoping this is a positive
change for my writing, as I’m really looking forward to providing you guys with the best work I can possibly put together.
Sadly, this is by no means “all good news,” as I’ll be able to see my daughter much less, and that depresses me to no end.
She’s amazing, and I miss the time I got to spend with her already. Such is life I suppose.
So now we’re all aware of why I haven’t written for two weeks. Hopefully this is just a transition to bigger and better things, but only
time will tell.
Anywho, on to some real magical content!
Standard Musings
I really want to start getting into some heavy Modern testing soon, but with two StarCityGames.com Open Weekends coming up in two weeks, it seems
completely irresponsible to ignore Standard right now. With my new free time, I’ve been doing a lot of MODOing (Magic Online for you newer pups
out there). You know what decks are showing up right now on MODO?
U/W Illusions Haunt
U/W Delver Haunt
U/W Humans Haunt
I mean, technically you have a smattering of other decks, but there you have your unholy trifecta. Standard is currently being dominated by Moorland
Haunt and Seachrome Coast. (At least online it is; there’s still a decent chance that the format is still different in live tournaments than on
MODO; however, with a lull in live tournaments due to the end of the Pro Season, MODO is currently the only source for metagame analysis, leading me to
believe that MODO results will play heavily into the results of any Standard event, including this past weekend’s StarCityGames.com Standard
Open: Atlanta, for the next week or so.) For the most part, you have Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, and Mana Leak to go along with those cards,
but U/W Humans also puts the colorless land-that-could to great use as well.
Looking to dodge playing the “Best Deck” (as I’m wont to do; it’s actually a problem I’ve had for a while because when I
finally do break down and play the best deck, I end up doing really well), I looked into playing a control deck. There were multiple options, but the
one that seemed to be decently positioned was Esper Control a la Jeremy Neeman. I sleeved up his exact list and traveled to my first Constructed FNM in
forever (the previous one in Fredericksburg, VA, runs drafts almost exclusively) and went 4-0-1 with the deck, albeit against less than stellar
competition. This isn’t to say that I’m God’s gift to Magic, rather my opponents were there to simply have fun and were not the
min/max grinders we’re all used to and know and love.
Here’s the list I was running:
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (27)
Spells (25)
As you can see, the maindeck was a straight port from Neeman’s article. As there was no sideboard listed,
I tried to think of as many generic answers as I could. I initially had a White Sun’s Zenith and a Karn Liberated for control matchups, but I
realized I wanted to be boarding in lands anyway, and Nephalia Drownyard acts as both a win con and another land drop, so it got the nod.
Was the deck good? Yes. Did I play against anything remotely similar to U/W Moorland Haunt decks? No. In other words, between the level of competition
and the fact that I didn’t play anything that I was expecting to play, the night did nothing more than win me some packs.
So this past Tuesday, the same local store runs a Tuesday night Standard tournament as well. So I attend again, running almost the exact same list. I
end up going 2-2, losing to Mono Red and a deck running Thrun maindeck. Then I played a ton of games against both James Pogue and Matt Eitel running
U/W Delver lists.
I got summarily rolled.
The match didn’t even feel close honestly. I would shoot everything on site, use my removal aggressively to conserve my life total, but at a
certain point they just grind you down. Runechanter’s Pike makes every single Spirit token a must-kill threat. There’s a chance I’m
playing the match wrong, but most games I die I literally am unable to do anything due to the Mana Leaks and Snapcaster Mages returning Mana Leaks
stopping whatever I do.
Online, I’ve been playing U/W Delver since I realized my error has been avoiding the actual best deck for no reason other than an irrational fear
of mirror matches against more prepared opponents. I perused the Daily Event results and came to this conclusion on the list I wanted to run:
Creatures (14)
Lands (21)
Spells (25)
I’ve fired up around four or five Dailies with this list in the past couple of days, and for some reason I keep going 2-2 with the list. I can
win eight-man after eight-man, any two-man queue I enter, but for some reason I can’t do anything in Daily Events. I’d like to point to a
series of unfortunate events (mulling to four, no white mana by turn 12 or so, etc…), but I’m sure bad plays are just as much to blame.
You see, I have no issue with anything that isn’t a mirror match. I actually love knowing that my Geist is not only going to resolve but also
most likely stick around for some sick beats. However, when it comes down to the mirror match, for some reason I just can’t figure out what
I’m doing. Are my draws bad? Not all of them, though some are pretty horrific. No, there are plenty of hands that are more than capable of
winning yet I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time. Why am I doing this? How can I stop it?
Well, for starters I think I was boarding incorrectly. I had Mental Misstep in the board yet never brought it in for the mirror. I have no idea why I
didn’t, but I didn’t. That card is so good here, as it stops most of their threats, their Vapor Snags, their Gut Shots, Ponders, Probes,
the Mental Missteps they brought in… the card just does so much.
Mortarpod is another card that I’ve been trying out here. Between murdering one of their guys and also protecting ours from Gut Shot, the card is
actually pretty good. In a pinch, the token can also carry a Runechanter’s Pike as well.
I’m still trying to figure out if I bring in the Timely Reinforcements, simply because while the card is an absolute blowout sometimes, there are
others where you have multiple dead Timely’s in hand. I know that means you’re “winning,” but I hate dead cards. I still bring
them in every time, but the jury’s still out in my mind.
All this is to say that, while I’m still working through the mirror match, I think the deck (or one of its inbred Moorland Haunt-fueled cousins)
is the absolute best thing going right now in Standard. I wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time you read this, U/W Haunt decks take up half of
the top eight in Atlanta. I loved not seeing the mirror, knowing that I was probably going to win. Unfortunately, Daily Events are littered with U/W
Haunt decks, meaning my inexperience in the mirror is still costing me dearly.
My options for my upcoming Standard then become some version of U/W Haunt or a control deck that actually beats U/W Haunt decks. Does such a control
deck exist? I have no idea yet. I started looking at options for adjusting Esper Control, including Wring Flesh or Virulent Wound. I then started
thinking: why am I playing white in my control deck?
I mean there are other cards we run in white, but these are the main draws of adding another color to a straight U/B Control list.
Now, the question then becomes: are the “replacements” you’d have in black not adequate enough so you’d have to add another
color? In all reality, against U/W Haunt decks, Day of Judgment ends up being more of a liability, at least in my experience. A lot of the time, I find
myself casting Day against a board of one Spirit token, lest I’m dead to that little innocuous ghost. There were times where casting Elesh Norn
just gave my opponent the fuel he needed to burn me out with Vapor Snags. And without Red decks running around everywhere, I’m not sure I need Timely Reinforcements, though that card is really good against U/W Haunt Decks still; I just don’t think it’s as necessary in that
matchup.
I find myself wanting to “lower my curve” a bit, playing spells that interact early and often. Virulent Wound and Wring Flesh are the main
culprits here, which then in turn make Snapcaster Mage even better. Gut Shot is another option, though if we’re running black mana I see no
reason to shoot ourselves in the foot. As long as you’re able to interact before they’re able to set up their shields, you should be fine.
So this leads me to looking at more U/B lists to see if someone else has already done the work for me (some may see this as “netdecking,”
which it is; however, I wrote an article before I came to this here website applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains to Magic and came to
the conclusion/realization that I didn’t have a high enough level of understanding of the format to be able to start brewing up new decks every
week to try to take down the format. Perhaps when I get much more acquainted with Standard over the next couple of weeks I can do this, but for right
now I’m looking to simply take a concept and tweak it to my tastes). This led me to an article written by Pat Cox a couple of weeks ago. This is
his list for reference:
Creatures (5)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (27)
Spells (25)
I really like the Virulent Wounds here. I’m not sure on the Wring Flesh vs. Virulent Wound debate yet, but since Virulent Wound is a permanent
-1/-1, I can see why it’s getting the nod currently. I don’t like that there are only three Forbidden Alchemies, but I won’t tweak
this list until I run it for a while honestly. That’s something that a lot of “netdeckers” do wrong—make changes before they
ever play a game with a deck. There’s a reason he ran the numbers he did; figure that out before making drastic changes to the decklist.
This is the type of deck I want to be trying out, a deck that has the tools to literally beat anything right now. Snapcasters allow you to double up on
your cheap removal spells, and you’re playing the full boat of Mana Leaks and Dissipates. For the control mirrors, Nephalia Drownyard pretty much
trumps their plans. Though be careful when playing Solar Flare, as you don’t want to add gas for them when you don’t need to (though,
honestly, how many people are still playing Solar Flare right now?).
So even though I may end up just going back to U/W Delver and forcing myself to try to actually learn the mirror match with that deck, I’m also
going to start taking a hard look at this U/B Control list. I really like the card choices, and I think the deck is rather well-positioned in this
Moorland Haunt-dominated metagame. One card I’d like to see somewhere would be Curse of Death’s Hold (that card is such a beating against
U/W Haunt), but until I get many a game in with the deck, I’m hesitant to make any real changes.
Well, I’m about to head out; I’ve got to run home and finish piecing together my deck for FNM tonight. There’s part of me that really
wants to just hop in the car and drive to Atlanta for the weekend, but I still have to be an adult with responsibilities, and money isn’t where
it would need to be at for me to make such a quick, rash decision.
Good luck at your local FNM or even your kitchen table! I’ll be seeing a lot more of you guys in the coming months!
@mikemartinlfs on Twitter
Shoctologist on MTGO