Hello!
This is my Grand Prix: Tampa report. Before that, I’m going to talk a little more about the Dark Depths deck in Extended.
For reference, here’s the list:
Creatures (11)
Lands (24)
Spells (25)
One of the questions I’ve received the most in those past weeks is whether I would play the Dark Depths deck again. I don’t really have a definitive answer to that yet, but if I had to guess, I would say no. The problem with this deck is that the best card against it — Ghost Quarter — is conveniently colorless. It’s immune to Thoughtseize and Muddle the Mixture, and it costs zero. You can play it in any deck – you can even play it maindeck – and there is not much the Dark Depths can do about it. If they are not playing a fast deck, then you usually have time to tutor for Needle/Quarter, but if they are playing something like Zoo and have Ghost Quarter, sometimes you just can’t tutor for an answer in a reasonable time, and since you only have two (your own Quarter and Needle), chances are you are not going to draw them naturally.
If I do play the deck, there are two directions to go. One is adding the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo to your sideboard (I don’t really like it in the maindeck). The other is overloading with your own Ghost Quarters. If you play something like three or four of them after the sideboard, then you can draw them naturally. I don’t really know which approach is best, since I haven’t played Extended since Austin, and I will probably play very little until Worlds unless I happen to stumble into a great Standard deck really soon, which is unfortunately not happening.
Another thing I would definitely do is add an Echoing Truth somewhere. Echoing Truth handles multiple Narcomoebas, Stinkweed Imps, Procession Tokens. If I had an Echoing Truth in my deck, I would have beaten Ikeda in the quarterfinals. I think the maindeck is a good spot for it, since more than once I had a Muddle in my hand and was wishing it could transmute for some kind of “removal.” I think playing it in the main makes more sense than playing a Doom Blade main, since it’s more versatile. I would remove a Repeal from my deck to add one. Everything else remains unchanged.
The sideboard should have one Darkblast over a Bitterblossom, at the very least. I completely underrated Darkblast in the mirror, and I would rather have one to Beseech for than the fourth Bitterblossom. It is possible you might just want to remove all the Bitterblossoms and play two Darkblasts and something else (maybe more Quarters). To make room for the Sword/Meek combo, I would cut the Doom Blade — I now don’t want to spend my tutors getting removal, as I can just get the other combo instead, and I already have an Echoing Truth — and a second Bitterblossom. If I do that, I would also cut a Crypt for an Academy Ruins, since it is almost as good against Dredge (and sometimes will even be better), and it complements the artifacts combo perfectly. The sideboard would look something like this:
2 Bitterblossom
2 Damnation
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Pithing Needle
1 Slaughter Pact (alternatively, the Pact can go, over a Bitterblossom)
1 Darkblast
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Academy Ruins
2 Threads of Disloyalty
Now, on to Tampa!
My trip to Tampa was slightly easier than most people’s journey, because we knew the Grand Prix was not going to be in Tampa, and we planned for it. We flew to Orlando directly from Austin, where we stayed until Friday. Whenever there is a layover in the U.S. between multiple tournaments, we always stay in Orlando if possible, because the hotels are cheap, the car rental is cheap, we already know everything in there, and there are the Amusement Parks. This time I got a bit sick and decided not go to the parks, but it’s not really a big deal since, as I said, we go to Orlando every time and I’ve been to them plenty of times already (though I’ve never been to the Sea World, so I probably will at some point).
We left Orlando on Friday, and drove a little less than two hours to get to our hotel, which was not in Palmetto (the GP city), but some miles away. This was not a problem since we had a car. Throughout the weekend, I witnessed many people waiting infinitely for cabs and shuttles, and I was really glad we had a car. One day my friends left before me, and then I had to wait with the French guys for around half an hour for our cab to arrive… ugh.
I arrived at the GP to find out the turnout was much smaller than I had anticipated, and then sat on my table waiting for my Sealed pool. I always get pretty excited about Sealed GPs, even though I think they are the worst format from a competitive standpoint, I can’t help but get thrilled as I’m getting my pool and trying to figure out my deck. This is what I got, minus the unplayables:
1 Jwar Isle Refuge
1 Turntimber Grove
1 Kabira Crossroads
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1 Soaring Seacliff
White:
1 Bold Defense
1 Kor Outfitter
1 Caravan Hurda
1 Windborne Charge
2 Ondu Cleric
1 Cliff Threader
1 Kor Cartographer
1 Luminarch Ascension
1 Celestial Mantle
1 Kor Duelist
1 Noble Vestige
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Pitfall Trap
Blue:
1 Cancel
1 Lethargy Trap
2 Spreading Seas
1 Archive Trap
1 Summoner’s Bane
2 Windrider Eel
1 Merfolk Seastalkers
1 Aether Figment
1 Shoal Serpent
1 Ior Run Expedition
2 Paralyzing Grasp
Black:
1 Grim Discovery
1 Mindless Null
1 Hagra Crocodile
2 Disfigure
2 Heartstabber Mosquito
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Guul Draz Vampire
1 Nimana Sell-Sword
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Hagra Diabolist
1 Bog Tatters
1 Surrakar Marauder
Red:
1 Torch Slinger
1 Inferno Trap
1 Tuktuk Grunts
1 Kazuul Warlord
1 Highland Berserker
2 Bladetusk Boar
3 Shatterskull Giant
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Slaughter Cry
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
Green:
2 Joraga Bard
1 Tajuru Archer
1 Frontier Guide
1 Savage Silhouette
3 Harrow
1 Baloth Woodcrasher
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Baloth Cage Trap
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Looking at my pool, I saw two directions to go — Black/X, or [Big number]-Color Green. Let me break down the colors:
White is by far my worst color, and there is no reason to play it barring a Journey to Nowhere/Pitfall Trap splash.
Blue is not very exciting, but it has good cards — 2 Eels, Seastalker, 2 Grasp. Blue is good if I pair it with Green, as the triple Harrow/Oracle power the two fliers, the Seastalker, the Serpent, and the Expedition, but probably not good enough to pair with any other color. Not that it is bad, but Red and Black are both superior as single colors.
Black is a deep color, and it has two Mosquitoes, two Disfigures, and Marsh Casualties going for it, as well as some good Allies. I will probably play some Black, regardless of the other colors.
Red offers a large amount of playables, some removal, and some allies. It also has a lot of good aggressive creatures, but most of them cost four, which might present some curve problems. Red also has some number of good Allies, including the Ally lord, and it is probably good if I pair it with Black but not with anything else.
Green has six good cards, and everything else is pretty bad, but its six good cards are really good. Triple Harrow and Oracle enable a variety of colors if I want to play them, and Baloth and Cage Trap give me something to do with all the mana (though I obviously cannot play the Oran-Rief). My biggest problem at the time with Green was the fact that I would be playing Green only for the mana fixing, but then wouldn’t it be easier to cut Green and then not need the fixing?
The first configuration that jumped to me was BR. I laid the cards down and I liked it a lot, though the four slot was really crowded, and there wasn’t anything in the three slot. Then I tried a five-color Green deck, that was basically UGB base splashing for all the removal in my pool, but I decided the curve was just so bad, with the first creature costing four, that I would just get overran by the faster decks. This is what I came up with:
2 Disfigure
2 Heartstabber Mosquito
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Guul Draz Vampire
1 Nimana Sell-Sword
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Hagra Diabolist
1 Surrakar Marauder
1 Torch Slinger
1 Inferno Trap
1 Tuktuk Grunts
1 Kazuul Warlord
1 Highland Berserker
2 Bladetusk Boar
3 Shatterskull Giant
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Trusty Machete
9 Swamp
9 Mountain
I really hated the fact that the deck has eight four-drops and no three-drops, but I don’t think anything could be done about that. I strongly considered playing the Mindless Null over one Giant, but the reason I would want a three-drop in this deck would be to trade so that I would have the time to play Giants/Intimidators/Fliers, and Mindless Null does not block. I would have gladly played Scathe Zombies, but here not the Null, as I don’t think the deck is aggressive enough for him. It also had fewer two-drops than I would have liked — I would trade any of my fours (hmm, not a Mosquito) for a Puma, or just another 2/1 for 2.
Slaughter Cry is a card that I like, but not in this deck — it’s good when you have a lot of early drops, which I didn’t. Bog Tatters is also maindeckable, since Black is by far the most played color (they ran out of Swamps at the tables), but even then it’s too fragile, and it costs five in my already heavy deck.
I was happy with my deck. Although it was not overly powerful, it was consistent. It had good mana, small creatures, big creatures, and removal.
My round 1(4) was a bit awkward. I was on table 2, paired against Tom Martel. The round was about to start, and Tom was nowhere to be seen. At some point, Matt Marr passed by and shouted “hey, you’re paired against Martel? I think he went back to the hotel, he is not coming.” At this point I’m feeling pretty happy, because, you know, 3 points! But then Kibler, who was at table 3, said he had told the judges to drop Martel, and he was going to talk to them about it. I jokingly said “Noooooo,” hoping that he would not but knowing that he should. I then got repaired against a guy who was 2-0-1, who was playing BR too.
Our first game was easy — he played three lands, killed two of my guys, and then died to the third and fourth without playing a fourth land.
Game 2 was equally easy, as I kept a five land and two spell hand, and drew five Lands, Highland Berserkers, and three more lands before dying to his Malakir Bloodwitch.
Game 3 was the one in which we had a real match. He had double Adventuring Gear, but no creatures. I played around Marsh Casualties, not playing a 3/2 in my hand, and it turned out he had it, as well as removal for every other guy I played, including the 3/2. I had a Marsh Casualties myself, and the board was this:
Me: Surrakar Marauders. In Hand, Marsh Casualties and Heartstabber Mosquito, as well as a land, and five lands in play.
Him: Surrakar Marauders with double Gear (tapped), Gatekeeper of Malakir (untapped), Vampire Nighthawk (untapped), one card in hand that I know is not a land.
We are both at decently high life totals. At this point, I know I am going to Marsh Casualties — the question is, do I do it before or after attacking?
If I attack first and he blocks with Nighthawk, then his Nighthawk dies in the Marsh Casualties too, which is great for me. However, who would block with Nighthawk there? You have to be very terrible to do so, as you get blown out by a number of cards, such as the Casualties itself, Disfigure, Slaughter Cry. The Nighthawk is too important and it will win the game by itself, so you don’t want to be calling a bluff and blocking with it. So either he takes two, which is the same as playing it after, or he blocks with the Gatekeeper, which is bad for me because I trade for a guy that is going to die anyway.
I decided my best play would be to play the Marsh Casualties pre-combat, and then attack and hope he would forget and block. He is not likely to do that, but I figure the chance of him blocking is, say, 5%, whereas the chance of him blocking with the Nighthawk pre-board is more like 1% (obviously I just made up those numbers, but you get the idea). Also, in my play, the worst case scenario is the middle case scenario for the previous one — that he takes two. My best case scenario is better than the other best case scenario (In both scenarios the Nighthawk dies, but in mine my Marauders stay alive), and in the other play the worst case scenario is just terrible as I lose my guy for nothing.
Then I thought I had to do everything in my power to make him block that guy. If we assume he knows I am a competent player, then if I attack into his guy, he is going to suspect something and will probably look for an explanation until he finds it — I’m surely not attacking my guy into certain death while being tapped out. So I figured my best shot was to trick him into thinking I had made a mistake, but a mistake that is makeable. What I did was play the Marsh Casualties, play a land, point at my guy, say ” Fear,” and attack. With that, I was hoping he would think I had not realized his guy was Black and could block, and was attacking because of that. This is certainly not something I think I would ever do, and I think I would have actually been a bit offended had he blocked, but it is a more probable mistake than just chump attacking — after all, I did win a game at Nationals because my opponent forgot Artifact Creatures could block guys with Fear.
It didn’t really work out, and he just took the two damage. In the end, I think he would have taken two whether I played it before or after combat, so it is not likely to have mattered, but I do feel like I did everything in my power to kill that Nighthawk.
He drew a land, equipped his Nighthawk with both his Gears and hit me for 6, putting me at 7. I drew a non-land, so couldn’t play the Mosquito. I had one turn to draw a land, two if he draws two non-lands in the next two turns. He drew, didn’t play a land, and attacked me to 5 — I now have hopes of buying even an extra turn if he misses another land drop. Only it turns out the card he had in hand (or the card he drew, I don’t know) was a Needlebite Trap, so I died.
1-2
3-1
My second match did not start very well — I mulliganed to five and died. I did put up a fight with an unblockable guy (since he was GW) with Machete, since my opponent’s deck was really slow and I had time to draw out of my mulligan, and one turn I had to draw my sixth land to equip Machete + play Mosquito, to set up a kill next turn if he doesn’t have anything (with “anything” being a pump spell, a removal spell, or a flier), but I don’t draw it and lose to giant animals.
I mulliganed my next hand game 2, and my six-card hand was Swamp, Vampire Lacerator, Guul Draz Vampire, Disfigure, Torch Slinger, and Bladetusk Boar, on the play. I am normally opposed to keeping any one-landers — strongly opposed — but I kept this hand. My reasoning is that he was playing a fairly slow GW deck, and I had turn 1 2/2 and turn 2 another guy, and the Disfigure in my hand would help me clear an early blocker even if it is a Nissa’s Chosen — that would theoretically be enough to get my Guul Draz Vampire online, and that would maybe kill him all by itself. If that failed, I could also draw a clump of lands and get to my Boar, which hopefully would be able to kill him if his life was low enough. So I played Swamp Lacerator, only to be met by Mountain (!), Burst Lightning. I didn’t draw a land turn 2, and my small Vampire does not come close to dealing 20 by itself.
0-2
3-2
At this point I am pretty depressed, and I go play on table 590 or something like that. I play two games against BG, and both were reasonably close, with us trading guys back and forth. In the end he had the last guy standing and I died both times, without anything interesting happening.
0-2
3-3
I dropped. I knew some 6-3s would make it, and I also knew none of them would be me.
At this point, I decided to look back and figure out what I was doing wrong. For about 4 years — since GP: Porto Alegre, 2004 — I’ve made Top 24 at every Limited GP that I’ve played (well, I guess my next Limited GP after Porto Alegre was in 2006, so make that 2 years instead). Then, in Kansas City, in 2008, I missed Day 2, though I had a 7-2 record. I made Day 2 in Atlanta with a pretty insane pool, then went 2-3 in Rotterdam, 1-3 in Boston, 2-3 in Brighton, and 0-3 in Tampa. What had changed? My first answer was that the sets had changed (M10 was my first culprit), but all those misses were over three different formats. Sure enough, I do not expect to make Day 2 at every GP I play, especially in a format like Sealed (though most of my decks were decent), but I think the discrepancy is too big to be ignored, since it ranged from Top 24 to not even close to Day 2 — I had to be doing something wrong.
I have a different theory, which might explain why I’ve been doing badly in those GPs, or might have nothing to do with anything at all: the number of boosters in the Sealed decks. Starting in Rotterdam, which is where the really big discrepancy first happened, we had to build our decks with six boosters and not five. That means decks get more powerful, have more bombs, and pretty much always have enough playables without needing to resort to a splash — which, if you want to do so, is easier to do because you have an extra booster of fixing.
I’ve always been one to prefer consistency over inconsistent power — give me a couple of removal spells and dudes in two colors instead of bombs spread around all five. That had worked well for me, since people’s decks were not overly strong, so my consistent decent deck could beat most of the opposition. Nowadays, though, decks are much stronger, and my way of building consistent decks just doesn’t seem to cut anymore in Sealed deck. I think I have to rethink my approach of it, and start being greedier, since I can no longer win with my ability of always building a very consistent deck.
Let’s take my pool, for example. The greedy approach is to play some five-color Green monstrosity, and just ignore that you don’t have a good curve, trying to rely on the cheap removal to stabilize early so that you have the time to play your bigger cards that hopefully win. I toyed with my pool at home, and came up with this, which is pretty close to what I got when I was trying the configuration in the GP:
2 Disfigure
1 Marsh Casualties
2 Heartstabber Mosquito
1 Nimana Sell-Sword
1 Ior Run Expedition (I don’t like this card, but with triple Harrow I’ll play it)
2 Paralyzing Grasp
1 Merfolk Seastalkers
2 Windrider Eel
1 Aether Figment
1 Shoal Serpent
3 Harrow
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Baloth Cage Trap
1 Baloth Woodcrasher
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Pitfall Trap
1 Jwar Isle Refuge
1 Plains
5 Island
4 Swamp
7 Forest
The manabase is not perfect, but it is decent enough.
This deck has exactly zero creatures that cost less than four, but it has 2 Disfigure, 2 Grasp, and Harrow into Journey/Trap for early plays, though its turn 4 creatures are not exactly stellar if you are behind . It might be that playing two random guys (such as 1/4 for 3G) is better than playing the White, but it is almost free and I like removal. If you cut the White cards, you can probably just cut the Plains for a spell, since 17 lands and triple Harrow should be enough. Hagra Crocodile is probably good in this deck, with the triple Harrow and all, but it is yet another four drop that doesn’t defend, so I don’t know about it.
So, is this deck better than the BR one? I don’t know — it is clearly less consistent and more powerful. I honestly think I like the look of it better, and if I could go back in time I would have played that one, but I might be wrong (or I might be biased because you can’t really do much worse than 0-3).
It is important to keep in mind, though, that this is Sealed deck we are talking about, so everything is thought around the limitations on your pool — it’s not like I’m going to try four colors every time now just because I found out being greedy is the way to go. What I will do is be more open to possibilities that I was not open before, and no longer see the consistent two-color deck as the default best. Lets only hope I can be greedy in Minneapolis!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and see you next week!