Reflections on Grand Prix: Minneapolis
It’s Block Constructed season. GP Twin Cities was a very long weekend, but now it’s over. I was judging, so I watched a lot more matches than almost anyone else there. Here are my observations.
First, a caveat: I have a job. I own a farm. I am involved in some other stuff in later spring and early summer. All this means that I had not played much Kamigawa Block Constructed prior to the PTQ a week before. (Note – real content starting soon.)
Prior to that weekend, I had not even drafted Saviors. We had played some stupid sealed*, but all I knew about the constructed format was from reading online. I knew I didn’t know enough to play a Gifts deck, and knew nothing about the White Weenie mirror (plus, I had no Hokoris.) I had built Red burn decks and a Blue/Red splice deck that was highly inconsistent – and I knew those weren’t playable. That left beatdown splashing removal.
I decided to play with Rancor, now known as O-Naginata. I looked at Green until I realized that I would have to play Gnarled Mass, and it was clear that Red offered nothing, Black, though, had lots of undercosted fat. I pulled together some ideas, then checked the web to see if anyone else had a similar build. I should have realized what would happen when I found several – no, many – variations out there.
(Note: we are almost to the real content.)
Online, Black beatdown decks featuring demons and ogres were being called Black Hand, and were well known. They were supposed to beat white weenie. They were being played. At the Madison PTQ, “Black Hand” variants were the most common archetype. I played five mirror matches, and lost to Sam Black (mirror match) and Adrian Sullivan (sort of a mirror).
(Finally – content.)
Sam taught me the importance of Manriki-Gusari in the mirror match. Since the creatures are about equal, the match comes down to the equipment and the Manriki wins the equipment battle. I was smart enough to run them sideboard – he had some maindeck. Whoever gets one on an untapped, active creature first probably wins. The other good mirror match cards are Mark of the Oni and Kiku’s Shadow.
Adrian’s deck was a more controllish Black deck, with Shoals, Laughter, Kiku’s Shadow, and finishing with Ink-Eyes and Kokusho. I ended up siding in Cranials against him, and won one game with Distress, then Cranial for the three Kokushos he was holding to wreck his hand, but I didn’t have that kind of luck game three. Adrian was playing the deck day two in Minneapolis – maybe he’ll write about it.
The other lesson that Madison taught was that Black Hand does not beat White Weenie. Black Hand was the single most common archetype played at that PTQ, far more than WW, but White Weenie had the most T8 slots and the finals was a WW mirror. The problem was that far too many matches came down to the Black Hand player having to test the WW player’s skills: if the WW player knew enough to make the Jitte White via 8.5 when the Hand of Cruelty attacked while equipped, WW won.
I was judging the main event both days at GP: Minneapolis. That means I saw a lot of matches and a lot of decks, but usually for only a couple turns at a time. I also answered a lot of questions, but often the same ones over and over again. Shining Shoal and redirection when the target disappears (damage doesn’t “disappear.”) Jitte and Sakura-Tribe Elder. Eight-and-a-Half Tails and Jitte tricks (e.g. trying to equip Jitte to Hand of Honor. Jitte is pro-white. Does it equip? Answer: Sure. Jitte isn’t being equipped with a Hand, Hand is being equipped with a Jitte.) etc.
At the Last Chance qualifier, the most common question was “when will this end?” I still don’t know the answer. I just helped out rounds one and two, then we went to a brew pub. It was still going strong when we staggered back.
I was staggering because of the heat, not brew. Minneapolis was hot and humid. Really hot. It was in the high eighties before 7am Saturday. And, yes, I was up and outside that early. The judges were working by 7:30.
Okay, back to content.
Black Hand
Gary Wise counted decklists. He classified 83 of the 406 as mono-Black, and most of them were the basic Black Hand decklist. Here’s a representative decklist from Madison, although it should have Manriki-Gusaris, at least in the sideboard:
Creatures (17)
- 4 Yukora, the Prisoner
- 4 Takenuma Bleeder
- 1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
- 4 Hand of Cruelty
- 4 Raving Oni-Slave
Lands (23)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
Aside from Adrian Sullivan’s Black control deck, this is basically what I saw being played. I also noticed that it was being played less and less often as the tourney went on. The deck had its usual problems with 8.5 tricks. More importantly, it was having serious problems with the Black Gifts decks. Black Hand had more problems recovering from board sweepers like Kagemaro, First to Suffer than other decks, especially when the opponent starts reanimating Kagemaro.
If you want to play this deck, do it only because you really like Black beatdown. I think the metagame has passed it by.
White Weenie
White Weenie remained strong. It started out at about 25 percent of all decks on Day 1, and was probably something like 25 percent of the decks on Day 2 as well.
The decklists all varied slightly, but those in the Top 8 were pretty representative. However, some varied in unexpected ways. I was doing deck checks Day 2, and I remember seeing one with 23 plains (no Eiganjo Castle) and only three copies of 8.5 Tails and just three Jittes – but that deck was at table 5 in the 13th or 14th round.
Celestial Kirin has won its place across the board, appearing maindeck in nearly all lists. Patron of the Kitsune also appeared, but less frequently. The Patron may have been an answer to attacks by Meloku tokens, but since the Meloku decks are now running many more board sweepers and pinpoint removal, WW really cannot allow the Gifts decks that kind of time anymore. However, Patron dodges Kiku’s Shadow, even without Manriki-Gusari, and it is difficult to kill with Kagemaro. I also saw the Patron provide a real advantage in the mirror match, so it is worth testing.
The White Weenie decks faced a lot of Gifts decks tuned specifically to beat them, but several still made the top eight. The deck is still extremely efficient and very good at punishing bad draws and slow starts. I can’t say a lot more, because I was on the deck check team Sunday, so I was not on the floor for the first 5-10 minutes of each round. That meant that many of the White Weenie players were already packing up by the time I started watching.
If you want to play this at PTQs from here on in, learn the rules on Shining Shoal, practice the mirror and work on speed. I saw a lot of WW pound Gifts decks down to a couple life, then be completely stalled out by Meloku and/or wrecked by Kagemaro. In a few cases, I saw a couple sub-optimal plays in the early turns that could have reversed that outcome. Black Gifts has a lot of cards that wreck WW – and if they start getting them into play, WW will lose. WW needs to be as fast as possible to beat Black Gifts. That is the other reason to practice the mirror – I saw some mirror matches degenerate into draws, and the draw brackets are full of Black Gifts decks. WW really doesn’t want to be there.
That said, WW is still the best beatdown deck in the format.
Black Gifts
The breakout deck of the tournament had to be the Gifts deck, reconfigured to support the heavy black required to run Kagemaro, First to Suffer, as well as Sickening Shoal and Hideous Laughter. That triple threat really wrecks many aggro decks. Adrian’s mono-Black deck was built around a similar combo, but the Black Gifts decks add the mana acceleration he lacks, plus the tutoring power of Gifts Ungiven.
Kagemaro is insane. I cannot count the number of times I watched a beatdown player almost take the match, only to have the opponent cast Kodama’s Reach, splicing Goryo’s Vengeance to return Kagemaro to play just long enough to clear the board. Kagemaro serves the same purpose as Final Judgment did the White Gifts decks at PT Philly – but unlike Judgment, Kagemaro is recurable and can beat for the win.
The Black Gifts decks also include another wrecking ball against beatdown decks: Exile into Darkness. It is mana intensive, but if beatdown decks like white weenie cannot establish an early win, Exile will pick of threats every turn.
Creatures (12)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
- 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
- 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
- 1 Myojin of Night's Reach
- 1 Hana Kami
- 3 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Lands (23)
Spells (25)
Mark Herberholz, in second place, ran almost the same deck. The only differences were than Mark put Meluko and the third Laughter in the sideboard and cut Whisper, replacing them with another Gifts, another Cranial Extraction and the Ethereal Haze. I think cutting Haze is a good idea – I heard at least two people relating the same tale of woe at different times. Both had the opponent in the Ethereal Haze “lock,” only to have the opponent rip Hokori, smash the lock and win the game. Eugene Levin, who was undefeated on Day 1 and just missed T8, ran the same configuration as Alex.
Here’s another reason to avoid the Haze lock – these decks are slow. The Haze lock makes them even slower. Finishing three games with these decks can be a real challenge, even without Ethereal Haze.
If you want to play this deck at a future PTQ, practice with it a lot. That is solid advice for any deck, but it goes double for any deck built around toolboxes and tutors. The deck has a ton of raw power and abuses the best cards in the format. If I were playing a PTQ tomorrow, and had playtested it enough, that is the deck I would want to play.
It is also the one deck I know I could not play. I am an average to moderately slow player, especially in the later rounds. That rules out Black Gifts. I have watched highly competent but methodical pros play Gifts, and they end up with multiple unintentional draws. At the GP, the Gifts players at the high end tables were routinely taking less than five second to resolve Top activations – including a clear announcement and a wait for responses, then drawing the cards, reordering them and placing them back on the deck. Five seconds, and often they were much faster than that. Even with players who were that fast, the games still went very long. Alex Leiberman’s untimed quarterfinals match went close to two hours. In a timed round, I’m not sure game one would have finished.
If you are not a fast and competent player, if you play Gifts, you will quickly wind up in the draw bracket, playing against other slow Gifts players, and ending the day with a lot of unintentional draws, and no top 8.
Oddities
On Day 2 I saw exactly one red deck. It was playing burn, Kumano, Master Yamabushi, and running White for something I did not see. (Maybe Haze?) That deck stayed in the bottom half of the Day 2 tables. I did not notice any other Red decks. The U/R Splice decks, and everything else playing much Red, apparently missed the cut.
Andrew Stokinger played a mono-Blue deck with Honor-Worn Shaku and Meloku. He made Top 8, and the decklist is in the StarCity database. I saw nothing else like in the tournament. I also saw almost none of his matches. I did watch a minute or two, when he had multiple Hinders in hand and Meloku and token beating down, against an empty-handed opponent. I also watched him double mulligan in the last game of the semis, then draw something like 3 Islands and 2 Meluko. He didn’t win that one.
If you want to try the archetype, I would recommend playtesting it a lot. AndyStok is a gifted player – I remember losing to him in the Top 4 of a Type One tourney a few years back. He is significantly above average – something to consider when playing a rogue deck that he alone seems to have success with. He may just be the first to win with that deck, or he may be the only one that can win with that deck. It’s like watching Zvi win with Turboland and Jerome Remie with Rock – they can do it, you probably can’t.
I saw one Gifts player resolve a Splinter nailing a Black Hand player’s Umezawa’s Jitte. It can be done. It just isn’t likely. It was the only Splinter I saw cast all day.
A final oddity: While the endless GP semifinal round was playing out, I was asked to table judge a semifinal at the PTQ. Edd Black was playing Eric Taylor. EDT was playing a Black Control / Black Hand with Psychic Spear and Kokusho. EDT’s first Spear missed, revealing that his opponent’s hand was Swamp, Forest, Plains, 2 Ghostly Prisons and a Sakura-Tribe Elder. EDT seemed a bit surprised.
He was even more surprised when the Hondens killed him several turns later.
Game two Psychic Spear revealed Ghostly Prison and Night of Soul’s Betrayal. Since EDT’s hand was Graverobber, Shortfang and Hand of Cruelty, Betrayal was a Very Bad Thing.™ Shortly thereafter, once Night of Souls Betrayal and a red Honden had shot down EDT’s weenies. Edd Black resolved an Enduring Ideal and fetched a foursome of Hondens (the blue Honden was sided out). After that, Edd failed to find any enchantments (except one turn when he produced a Cage of Hands to lock down Ink Eyes.) EDT died a turn or two later. I returned to the main event, so I don’t know where Edd finished. I hope he won.
I don’t know if there is a moral to that match. EDT did not have Cranial Extraction or a full set of Distresses in his sideboard, so he lost to a random/unexpected deck. A week before, I played Black Hand, but I had Cranial Extraction and Distress sideboard, so I beat the U/R Splice deck I met round one, and I beat Edd when we played a sideboarded game for fun between rounds. One the flip side, I didn’t have as much sideboard dedicated to the mirror, so I lost two of those matches. Based on the percentages, EDT’s approach – dedicating sideboard slots to the common matches – is a better bet. However, it is not a bad idea to include something for the random decks that are out there. If enough people ignore that advice, you may meet the unexpected decks in the T8.
(I also heard that Epic Hondens – probably Edd – was ripping up the Last Chance Qualifier in the early rounds on Friday. No idea how he finished at that one. Edd’s decklist should be in the StarCity database shortly, if not already there.)
Good luck in the PTQs.
PRJ
* One method for learning the new cards when you have limited time – and lots of boosters – is to shuffle together 5 boosters and 20 of each land. Games are slow, and you actually try out all the weird cards. It also saves the time normally used for deck construction. Since Ingrid and I both got paid in Saviors packs for judging the prereleases, we had lots of packs to open – this was how we opened a box. About all I can say is that it taught me how good Exile into Darkness was, before I read anyone online talking about it.