More Vintage Tech with Randy Buehler

He’s at it again, and now Randy Buehler has taken home a Mox Jet to complement the Black Lotus and Beta Mox Pearl he’s won in the past six months. Once again, Randy proves that he still has what it takes to take home first place. As the head of Research and Development for Wizards of the Coast, Randy probably has a better idea of how Magic works than any other single individual. Beyond that, when a player of his quality decides to answer a few questions, anyone interested in winning could do worse than to pay attention.

In the past, Randy has sleeved up some of the more popular control decks in Vintage, piloting Control Slaver and Meandeck Gifts in his previous victories. Considering his track record, it definitely seems like he knows what he’s doing when choosing what to run. This time, Randy decided to play a deck that none of you have ever seen before.

Randy: It’s a Gifts-Oath hybrid. After I won that tournament a few months ago with Steven Menendian’s Meandeck Gifts deck, he and I exchanged several e-mails talking about the deck. He eventually gave me the password to Team Meandeck’s forums and I’ve been lurking there ever since, chipping in the occasional post. One of the threads that caught my eye was called “Hybrids, baby, hybrids.” It was started by a guy I know only as Toad the Crazy Frenchman and he had this idea that Oath is really good against many of the decks that give Gifts fits (like Stax and Fish), while Gifts is good in the control matchups where Oath doesn’t shine.

I watched as various team members started testing and tuning the deck. Team Meandeck was pretty impressive to me – they shared information efficiently and the deck just kept getting better. Eventually, Smennen started gushing about how amazing the deck was and how running Oath was like running five Tinkers. Back when I was playing on Tour, my playtest team was all in Pittsburgh and so we always got together on campus, or over dinner to talk Magic. The whole Internet team phenomenon is a little new to me so it’s been kind of neat to watch it in action.

Here’s the deck as I played it:

Meandeck Gift Oath

Stephen Menendian

Test deck on 10-09-2005

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (1)

• 1 Darksteel Colossus

Lands (16)

• 3 Forbidden Orchard
• 2 Island
• 2 Volcanic Island
• 2 Underground Sea
• 1 Tundra
• 1 Tropical Island
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 1 Tolarian Academy

Spells (43)

• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Mana Drain
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 4 Oath of Druids
• 1 Yawgmoth's Will
• 2 Duress
• 4 Force of Will
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Time Walk
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 4 Gifts Ungiven
• 1 Burning Wish
• 1 Tinker
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Recoup
• 1 Krosan Reclamation
• 1 Lotus Petal
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Jet
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire

Sideboard

• 1 Tendrils of Agony
• 1 Balance
• 2 Hurkyl's Recall
• 2 Red Elemental Blast
• 3 Sacred Ground
• 2 Rack and Ruin
• 2 Pyroblast
• 2 Pithing Needle

The deck often plays like a typical Vintage control deck. You try to stop them from killing you while you draw some extra cards, which you use to gain control and set up your own win. And it’s just like Meandeck Gifts in that it has two primary routes to victory: attack them twice with Darksteel Colossus or set up a broken Yawgmoth’s Will turn where you Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony. The big difference here is that you also have the option of playing the deck very aggressively, throwing down an early Oath. Meandeck Gifts was already more aggressive than a typical control deck. Sometimes your draw said, “play a turn 1 Tinker for the Big Man and just see what happens.” Well this build takes that philosophy and extends it dramatically. Oath of Druids lets you go for those broken openings a lot more often, and you use your control elements to defend your own win rather than just stopping the opponent. I really like the way this deck plays radically differently depending on both what your opponent is trying to do and what options your draw gives you. Are you the beatdown? Are you the control deck? It all depends. It was already ambiguous with Meandeck Gifts and with this variant you have this whole new Oath direction you can use either offensively or defensively.

Randy: I have no idea why both Toad and Smemmen left Krosan Reclamation out of their main decks. Sure Oathing up the Big Man is nice, but it’s even better to have the option of Oathing a second time and then flashing back Reclamation targeting Yawgmoth’s Will. There’s always more than enough jewelry in the graveyard by then to Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony and be well over 10 spells. Sure it sucks to draw the Reclamation, but the fact that it makes the deck more powerful in every game more than makes up for that in my mind (especially since you can often Brainstorm it back in).

Randy: Well I had been having decent luck with Meandeck Gifts, but I always felt that the last few cards were a bit on the weak side (Misdirection and Merchant Scroll in particular). That said, the deck does suit my style nicely so once I started reading that the hybrid deck was just like Gifts but with more powerful cards, I was intrigued. I also knew that the local guys all knew Meandeck Gifts by now so I kind of relished the idea of showing up with something they hadn’t already read about on the Internet.

Randy: On the one hand I spend lots of time trying to get inside my opponent’s head and understand what they’re trying to do, what they think matters in this matchup, etc. But on the other hand I don’t talk a whole lot when I play. I try not to ever give anything away so I keep my face expressionless and I don’t react until I’ve had time to think about the ramifications of what my opponent is trying to do. I definitely think my ability to figure out what mistakes my opponent will make helps me, but I’m so stoical that I doubt that’s what most people mean by a “mental game.”

Randy: It was a sea of Gifts players plus some combo (which around here means TPS and Dragon) with surprisingly little Stax mixed in. I see a lot of the same guys at most of the Seattle area tournaments and they pretty much all show up with reasonable decks so there’s never any easy rounds. I beat a Gifts player in the first round and then dropped round 2 to TPS. That deck seems to have my number (I think over half my losses over five tournaments have come to it). I came back to beat a Workshop deck and then Dragon deck, which set me up to draw into the Top 8.

The quarterfinals was against one of the regulars at these things – a guy named Cory running TPS who I had knocked out of a previous Top 8. I’m finally getting smart enough to counter the first cards when they go off rather than waiting to stop their card drawers. So often they just don’t need to draw more cards and the key spells turns out to be a Dark Ritual or a Hurky’s Recall. I won this match by countered a Hurkyl’s and leaving his Tendrils one spell short of being lethal (and the last card in his hand was a second Tendrils that he was one Black mana short of being able to play). I untapped and Oathed enough cards into my ‘yard that I had no problem playing my own Tendrils for 40.

Randy: Well the most exciting was game 3 of the semifinals. It was against a guy named Tyrell who was running SSB-Gifts. He had the Force of Will for my first turn Oath off of Forbidden Orchard, but I still managed to force an Oath into play a couple of turns later, though it completely depleted my hand whereas he still had some cards left. I Oath up the Big Man and he then played out Goblin Charbelcher. There’s no sign of Mana Severance and I’m on 14. I spend a lot of time during his end step deciding how to play out the rest of the game. I can Oath the rest of my library away and try to flashback Krosan Reclamation and win immediately, but if he has any permission then this play loses me the game. I think he’s just planning to raw-dog it with Belcher and try to race my Colossus that way so I don’t want to be risky. I decide not to Oath and instead mentally commit to just attacking him twice.

His first Belcher activation hits me for 4, his attack with a spirit token then puts me at 9. He shouldn’t be able to deal 14 on two blind activations, not in that deck anyway, but I’m still terrified. On the last turn he Brainstorms, presumably putting two spells on top to help out his odds. I have drawn the Reclamation and I’m disappointed not to find any lands in his graveyard, but I use it for zero targeting him just to make him shuffle those spells in. The whole room is gathered around as he flips cards over … he mentions that both his Volcanics are in play so that makes me breath a little easier … flip … flip … land! I win!

Randy: My opponent is Michael Gurney (who I recognize from the Pro Tour … he was Top 8 at Mikey P.’s LA and almost made the Canadian National Team the year they finished second in the World to Finkel’s Team USA) and he’s running Psychatog. I felt my draw was amazing (permission, land, and several threats) so I proceeded cautiously … picking fights during his end step so he’d be tapped out and I never would, etc. I got him tapped out twice where I untapped and played a game-winning threat, but he had the Force of Will both times. Then he top-decked a Mana Drain and top-decked an Intuition to sink the mana into. Suddenly I was out of gas and we were both in top-deck mode. His deck delivered up another Intuition and suddenly I was against the ropes. I knew Psychatog would kill me and I knew Yawgmoth’s Will would definitely kill me so I gave him door #3 – Cunning Wish. “Maybe all he’s got in the sideboard is a card drawing spell,” I thought to myself. He returned from his sideboard with Corpse Dance and suddenly I couldn’t swallow. I did my best to make it look like I might have some answer to a one-shot kill via Psychatog, but I knew it was really just a question of math. He was going for it if it was lethal. After much counting and recounting he could deal 16.5 damage … and I was at 17. Wow. (He was also one mana short of buying back Corpse Dance and getting an extra discard.) After one last recount he has to just say go.

I get one draw phase before I … Gifts! My deck loves me! I have no way to win on the spot so I have to make sure I wind up with an answer to a hasty, lethal ‘Tog. I offer him Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, Duress, and another copy of Gifts Ungiven. He gives me both Blasts. On his turn he top-decks Cunning Wish. I only have one red untapped (because I tapped badly for the Gifts) so I can’t afford to counter it. He gets Mana Short. Suddenly we’re in this bizarre stalemate where I know he has Mana Short plus Corpse Dance and he knows I have two Blasts. Neither of us does anything for a while. I draw into a Force of Will and a Krosan Reclamation (which means I now have four answers to the ‘Tog). I’m feeling pretty good until he taps his Library of Alexandria and points out that he’s got 7 cards in his hand. Uh-oh. That puts the pressure on me to act. I get a little lucky, drawing Oaths on back to back turns, and I manage to get one into play. I Oath up a Colossus and now he has to go for it. I use Reclamation as a response to Mana Short, shuffling his Tog back into his graveyard and suddenly his Corpse Dance doesn’t do anything so I get to preserve a Blast. On my turn I use that Blast to defend a Time Walk and that’s game, set, and match.

Randy: I’m sure the best matchup is against creature decks, but no one ever seems to run them in this area. The one match I played against an opponent without Force of Will I felt invincible too, but that could just be because he was a Workshop deck other than Stax. It’s funny, but with Type 1 I always feel like my best matchup is anybody with a bad draw and my worst matchup is anybody with a good draw. There’s usually at least one game in the match where we get to play, though, and that one often comes down to play skill rather than deck matchups. Things might be different if all the matchups were well understood, but for now I find myself rooting for anything I get to interact with. I like my chances if we get to do enough punching and counterpunching, whereas I don’t like playing against decks like TPS and Stax where the opponent mostly just plays out his hand and then looks up to see if he won or not.

Randy: I liked the deck a lot. I really wanted access to all four copies of Duress somewhere, though. I think I would shift Oath #4 into the sideboard so I could have 3 Duresses main and then I would put the 4th Duress in the ‘Board to bring in against at least TPS and also possibly against control. The second Hurkyl’s and the third Sacred Ground seem like the sideboard cards to cut, I think, but if the good players in my area ever start focusing on Stax I might sing a different tune.

Randy: When I switched from Control Slaver to Meandeck Gifts I really felt like I upgraded significantly. I always felt that Thirst for Knowledge was just underpowered for the format, so getting to switch that engine out in favor of Gifts felt very powerful. This feeling was similar. I got to take out the worst cards in my deck (which in this case were Merchant Scroll and Misdirection) and replace them with very powerful cards (Oath and Regrowth). As long as no one is punishing you for running a lot of non-basics, the deck gets pretty much strictly better. Meanwhile if you’re opponent is running a deck full of Wastelands, they’re probably running something that’s vulnerable to Oath of Druids itself. I have no field experience with the Stax matchup, but I think it might be better now, even with the junked up mana base, just because of the Oaths.

Randy: I do, yes. There are draws that are just unbeatable and I don’t think that happens as much in other formats. Certainly in Limited it almost never happens. In other Constructed formats there are matchups where, once both players understand how to play them, it all comes down to who draws what. However, that only happens with players of a similar skill level and after the matchup is understood. In Type 1 even the bad players get “oops, I win” draws. That said, this luck factor is mitigated by the fact that the decks aren’t all super well-tuned, the matchups aren’t well understood by all the players, and there is still room to innovate. Given my druthers, I would probably rather play a format where there’s more luck but there is also more room to innovate.

Randy: My favorite formats were always formats that were well-formed enough that I understood what my opponents were likely to play and what their decks were trying to accomplish, but yet unexplored enough that it’s possible to come up with new tech to unleash on them. This doesn’t happen very often in Standard these days because the format is so well explored on the Internet that there isn’t a whole lot of room for true innovation. (You do get the sweet spot right around tournaments like States, where the format has just rotated. Pro Tour Constructed formats are also often in this sweet spot where you know some stuff, but not everything.) Constructed formats like that are a lot of fun for me. I don’t get to spend as much time breaking Vintage now as I used to spend breaking Pro Tour formats back in the day, but I have Team Meandeck helping fill in that gap for me right now. My playstyle hasn’t changed much, but my preparation style has.

Randy: The thing I miss most about playing Magic professionally is the day-of, adrenaline-rush, step-in-the-arena-and-prove-you-can-do-it-again thrill of competition. I’ve been trying to replace that for six years and largely failing. I’ve dabbled in poker tournaments (I’m the reigning Washington State No-Limit Hold ‘Em champ and I’ve played on the World Poker Tour twice), but poker just isn’t as good a game as Magic. Magic players are so much smarter than the average chump who loses at poker, and Magic itself is so much more skill-testing that I find the challenge of winning a lot more rewarding. The thing I’ve enjoyed most about these tournaments is just getting the chance to play Magic “for real.” I think it’s the best strategy game out there and I really miss getting to compete.

Randy: Definitely, but not really. I do think that understanding Vintage helps me in a number of ways. I am a more qualified advisor to the DCI when it comes time to consider banning and restricting cards, I am in a better position to discuss what our customers care about when it comes to tournaments or play environments, and it also just helps us enjoy our jobs more when I can get the guys talking about Vintage. However, the power level of the format is so sky-high that we just can’t make a lot of cards that impact it. We will continue to look for opportunities as they present themselves, and I guess I’m in a better position to notice them now, but no I’m can’t say it has affected my design or development work up to this point.

Randy: Tricky question to answer. Obviously the fast artifact mana is actually the most format-defining card, but that’s not a very interesting answer. Force of Will is also essential to making the format what it is, and Yawgmoth’s Will is probably the most broken card in the format even though it doesn’t define any deck in particular. Sorry to dwell on vocabulary, but I have a Master’s degree in Philosophy so I’m trained to care about what words mean … the battle for understanding is half won if you just know which words to use. Anyway, I think you’re fishing for my read on the metagame (as opposed to the format). To me, there seems to be three Tier 1 archetypes: Workshop decks (esp. Stax), “Mana Drain” decks (esp. Gifts) and Combo decks (esp. Storm-based). I think the combo decks are a cut below the others in their ability to win consistently. I also think the Stax decks are the most powerful decks available, but they don’t give you nearly as much ability to outplay your opponent as the control decks. (I put Mana Drain in scare quotes because it’s just not that crucial to the way the decks work, in my opinion. I think I spent a grand total of one Mana Drain mana en route to winning last weekend and I often sideboard the card out. They’d be more accurately called Force of Will decks, or even Brainstorm decks, if only that distinguished them from combo.)

One of the most talked about Ravnica cards for the Eternal formats is Flame Fusillade. Did R&D notice the Time Vault/Flame Fusillade interaction? If so, how intentional was that, if not, how much of an issue do you think that is?

Randy: I don’t think we saw it at the time, but we noticed it several months ago. It was not intentional, but at the same time I don’t know that we would have changed Flame Fusillade if we had seen the interaction back then. I do think a two-card “I win” combo for just six mana and in one color is awfully good, but it’s probably not good enough to break Vintage. Legacy seems like the bigger issue, where there just isn’t other stuff that’s that broken running around. My rule of thumb is Pandemonium – Saproling Burst. That was a two-card “I win” combo that cost eight mana of two different colors and it was not good enough to take over Extended. (It only got played when you could Replenish the whole thing into play … both cards have been legal for years since Replenish left but no one has even attempted to run a deck based around them at a high profile event.) This combo is a good bit easier and we’ll certainly be watching to see how well it does at the upcoming Legacy Grand Prix, but personally I’ll be surprised if it’s better than the existing combo decks in Vintage.

Randy: Mike Turian dipped his toe in the water once (piloting a Zuran Orb – Crucible of Worlds – Fastbond homebrew and missing Top 8 by a point) and Nate Heiss has taken a Stax variant into battle twice. Now that Zvi has started working for us, I think we might have another taker too.

Randy: Heh, I like my job a bit too much for that.