So Many Insane Plays — Known Unknowns: Tactical Ambiguities in the Fish versus GroAtog Matchup

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
Donald Rumsfeld

As promised, this week we’ll deconstruct the GroAtog matchup against the best performing deck at SCG Roanoke that didn’t run 4 Gifts Ungiven. As reported last week, that deck happened to be U/B/W Fish. I will run one match, best of three games. Note that this match is far too small of a sample to tell us anything about the matchup ratio, who is favorable and who is not, but it should provide plenty of tactical information about the sorts of in-game decisions that face the Fish and GAT players. It may also anecdotally suggest which strategy may be the stronger in the matchup.

SCG Roanoke was the final, major Vintage tournament before the restriction of Gifts Ungiven. That being the case, we expected plenty of Gifts to show up as pilots wanted to take the deck on one last spin before it took its (hopefully temporary) place on the restricted list. Although a Gifts deck ended up winning the tournament, only two Gifts decks placed in the Top 8 (1st and 8th). This is pretty much consistent with the data I dug up regarding Gifts placement in Top 8s and its overall tournament performance. In fact, by my count there were only 4 Gifts decks in the whole tournament (out of 60 players).

The most striking data point is the one that confirms the hypothesis I announced last week and the week before that: there were six decks in the Top 8 than ran at least 2 Merchant Scrolls, for a total of 15 Merchant Scrolls in the Top 8.

Recently, a Vintage player, David Earley, claimed that Aven Mindcensor was a format-defining card. A format-defining card can be many things. It can be something that is omnipresent like Force of Will, something that dramatically affects deck design format-wide like Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand, or something that shapes the strategic focus of the format like Yawgmoth’s Will in Vintage (for instance, you could previously divide the world of Vintage decks into Yawgmoth’s Will decks versus Anti-Will decks) or Goblin Lackey in Legacy (you either beat it or your deck is not viable). Aven Mindcensor is format relevant and an important metagame competitor, but it is not format-defining by any thoughtful understanding of that term.

In contrast, welcome to Merchant Scroll dot format. Merchant Scroll is format-defining. Virtually every major deck with Blue runs it. And unlike cards like Force of Will or Duress, ubiquitous disruption spells, or Polluted Delta and Mox Sapphire, omnipresent mana sources, Merchant Scroll is an unrestricted tutor and card advantage enabler that is now forming part of the backbone of a range of strategies. With GAT coming onto the scene, post-SCG Roanoke, Merchant Scroll’s star is going to rise even further, if that is imaginable.

It is my view that this should have occurred two years ago, but better late than never. Vintage players were too wedded to Thirst for Knowledge. See “The Case for Thirst For Knowledge in Vintage Gifts” – articulated in explicit terms over Scroll by Andy Probasco. In contrast, take a look at the Top 8 decklist he ran from SCG Roanoke this weekend. Actions speak louder and more clearly than words.

With that brief format interlude out of the way, here are our competitors today:

This is the GroAtog decklist I’ve been clamoring about for the last few weeks. In the other corner:

Game 1:

Fish wins the die roll, 12 to 3, and elects to play.

Here is Fish’s opening hand:

Polluted Delta
Mox Sapphire
Dark Confidant
Stifle
Jotun Grunt
Jotun Grunt
Null Rod

I’ve organized both hands so that you they may be more readily evaluated at a glance. This was not the order in which cards were drawn.

This hand can play any of the cards drawn here on turn one.

As a Fish player, would you keep this hand?

I could imagine an expert Fish player coming up with reasons why this hand might not be stronger than a random/potential hand of six. For instance, Null Rod isn’t that great against GAT (although it can randomly be back breaking, and definitely slows GAT down in any case). In addition, the second Jotun Grunt probably has limited utility in the early game. However, in my view, turn 1 Dark Confidant is about one of the strongest openings this deck can expect for generating card advantage.

In any case, if the Fish player was playing blind in a game 1, I can’t imagine that there is any serious argument for mulliganing this hand.

GroAtog opens this hand:

Mox Emerald
Polluted Delta
Underground Sea
Quirion Dryad
Gush
Merchant Scroll
Mystical Tutor

This is a standard GAT opening – not broken, but solid – and a definite keeper.

Turn 1:

Logically, Fish has to play Polluted Delta or Mox Sapphire first (since spells can’t be played without paying for them), and the order doesn’t matter. So we drop those two cards onto the table.

But what’s next?

Fish has essentially (when we compress the plays into each other) four options:

Break Delta for Underground Sea and play Dark Confidant
Break the Delta for Tundra and play Jotun Grunt
Break the Delta for a land of your choice and play Null Rod
Do not play either Confidant or Grunt so that you can hold up Stifle for a Fetchland.

Note that option 4 is consistent with breaking the fetchland immediately or just waiting.

I think we can agree that option 2 is inferior to option 1. If we break Delta to play Grunt, the only way to keep the Grunt around if the GAT player does not put two cards in the graveyard before your next upkeep is to Stifle the Grunt trigger. This seems poor.

Secondly, option 1 is inherently the most attractive, regardless of any other considerations. You play Dark Confidant in decks like this to see additional cards. It follows that you maximize the number of cards you see when you play him as soon as possible and the longer the game goes. Playing him on turn 1 is the soonest you can play him and hopefully helps you see more cards that will help you stay in the game longer.

A turn 1 Null Rod would normally be a serious consideration, but goes against several tenants both in general and here. First of all, Fish traditionally plays Null Rod as the second or third threat, not the first. It is a disruptive element that best follows board threats. Granted, your chances of resolving it are greater on turn 1, but that’s just generally not how it’s done. A weak but somewhat analogous comparison is playing Gush before Quirion Dryad or Psychatog. Sure, you can do it, but that’s generally not how it’s done. Second, playing Null Rod here shuts you off from playing a turn 2 dude unless you topdeck another land on turn two. Finally, playing turn 2 Null Rod is only marginally weaker than turn 1 Null Rod. Why not just get the Confidant on the table, let it start drawing you cards, then drop the Null Rod? With Confidant in play, you increase your chances of seeing non-artifact mana sources so your Rod hurts you even less. It’s generally the sounder play.

That brings us to options 1 and 4. My GAT list has 6 fetchlands. Stifling a turn 1 Fetchland is a pretty solid play, and there are few better uses of Stifle. The other obvious uses of Stifle include: 1) Stifling a Dryad trigger, 2) Stifling a Tog trigger, and that’s about it. No Storm in this deck. That said, out of 21 mana sources, only 6 are affected by Stifle. There is a good chance that GAT won’t even play a turn 1 Fetchland. And whether they do or don’t, there is a very high probability that they will attempt to break a fetchland at some point later in the game.

All this suggests that the best play is turn 1 Dark Confidant. Note that there is one other reason to do this. In order to be able to play Jotun Grunts, we need White mana. Turn 1 Dark Confidant increases the chance that we can play turn 2 Grunt.

Fish breaks the Delta for Underground Sea, and taps it and the Mox for Dark Confidant.

Fish passes the turn.

GroAtog:

GroAtog draws Force of Will.

Now, GroAtog has many turn 1 options, just as the Fish deck did.

First of all, it has to decide which land to play first: the Delta or the Sea. That question should be determined by first ranking our desired lines of play and then balancing those against the risks of the mana denial that Fish might attempt to throw at us.

Let’s begin with our spells.

We can play:

Merchant Scroll
Quirion Dryad
Mystical Tutor

We can’t play Gush right now and the Force of Will is here to protect whatever we want to do.

We can eliminate Mystical Tutor as a somewhat silly option, inferior to Scroll. Playing turn 1 Scroll for Ancestral pretty much guarantees that we can play turn 2 Ancestral unless they have two disruption spells or two countermagic options. There is also no need to Scroll for Force, since we already drew it. The only really sound option is Dryad. Turn 1 Dryad is followed up by enormously powerful turn 2 plays here. We can Scroll for Ancestral on turn 2, play it, and Gush. We’ll see at least 6 new cards next turn, growing the Dryad in the process. Ideally, we’ll then be able to Mystical for Yawgmoth’s Will on turn 3, and play that there to try and seal this game up.

Now that we’ve selected a preferred line of play, the remaining question is, which lands should we play? If we assume that our opponent is playing Fish, we can further assume that they run Wastelands and Strip Mine. Although we have Gush in hand to help prevent Wastelands from being effective, a turn 2 Wasteland could knock out our first dual land. It makes sense to drop our dual land into play on turn 2 and then Gush when they try to Waste it or before they have an opportunity to do so. Moreover, we have Sea for Black and Mox Emerald for Green, so we aren’t wanting in terms of color requirements. The most sensible and logical play is to break the Delta for basic Island. The only card that this play succumbs to is Strip Mine.

Play Delta, break it for Island. Play Mox Emerald. Play Quirion Dryad. It resolves. Pass the turn.

Turn 2:

On Fish’s upkeep, Confidant reveals Echoing Truth. Fish is at 17 life.

Fish draws Mox Pearl.

Let’s just drop the Pearl on the table to simplify our analysis.

Think carefully because what comes next will be the most important play Fish makes in this game. What would you do and why?

Here are your options:

1) Drop a Jotun Grunt onto the table.
2) Play Null Rod.
3) Play Echoing Truth on the Dryad.
4) Hold up Stifle for one of their Fetchlands (or a Dryad trigger).
5) Attack with Confidant in hopes of getting them to block with Dryad.
6) Do nothing on your mainphases.

What do you do? How do you go about deciding?

Note that options 4 and 5 are not mutually exclusive with other plays here. Since we have three mana available, option 4 of playing Stifle works off any of these options. So we can accept that option 4 is on the table regardless of our other plays.

With regard to option 2, Null Rod seems even worse this turn, as two of our three mana sources are now Moxen.

What about option 1? The fundamental problem here is that Jotun Grunt probably doesn’t have enough food to feed on. This is compounded by the fact that we are holding two Grunts and they both consume the same resource. It’s like two pigs in the same trough. In the current game state, there is only one card in both graveyards. Assuming we play Grunt, the only way that Grunt can survive to attack is if one of players puts another card into a graveyard by the Fish player’s next upkeep or if we Stifle the Grunt upkeep trigger. Thus, if we play Grunt, the GAT player’s optimal tactical response is probably just to wait out the Grunt at that point by doing basically nothing. On the other hand, that does buy the Fish player more time (another turn) to see cards with Dark Confidant and try to win the card advantage war. If we Stifle the first Grunt trigger, then we can feed the Stifle and the Fetchland to the Grunt. That will give us at least one more turn. By then, it’s hard to imagine that the GAT player will do nothing, giving us two free Time Walks. On the other hand, even if they do play a spell, the Grunt won’t survive for very long since his upkeep is cumulative. Assuming that the GAT player does play spells, they’d have to play a whole bunch to make the Grunt survive to turn 5. In short, playing Grunt here is tantamount to playing Orim’s Chant on their next turn and casting Fireblast on them.

So, option 2 is bad, option 1 is weak, which leaves option 3 as the mana consuming play. If we use the Echoing Truth, several questions arise. First of all, assuming we do it, when do we do it? If we do it now, we can attack with our Confidant, taking the GAT player to 17. On the other hand, if we wait, and if they draw countermagic, they will be more inclined to use that countermagic. That could be good or bad depending on our view of what we are trying to accomplish. Getting them to spend countermagic might play into our plan of overwhelming them with Dark Confidant’s card advantage to resolve better spells later in the game. However, if we really just want the Dryad off the table – at least temporarily – then the better play is to Echoing Truth it now. Since they didn’t counter the Confidant, we can at least suspect that they don’t have Force of Will. This will stunt their development since they will be inclined to replay the Dryad before playing other game advancing spells.

However, there is one additional wrinkle. We could really screw them over if we Echoing Truth in response to their main phase spells. For instance, assuming that they play the typical Merchant Scroll or some other tutor and Brainstorm, we could wait until they no longer have the mana available to replay the Dryad and then bounce it. In other words, we could let the Dryad grow while the GAT player assumes that they’ll be able to swing for quite a few points of damage, and then, at the penultimate moment, bounce the Dryad forcing them to wait until turn 3 to replay it, making it much smaller than it otherwise could have been. This play, potentially the most rewarding is also the most risky. Waiting to play the Echoing Truth until the very last moment gives them the most time to find or see countermagic that could address the Echoing Truth.

There is one final consideration. We could just hold off on playing the Echoing Truth altogether in the short term on the assumption that our card advantage with Dark Confidant should enable us to force it through in the mid-to-late game. In other words, if we choose to not use the Echoing Truth at all right now, then perhaps the superior play is to do nothing or just drop a Grunt onto the table, as that is about all that is left to us.

That’s a cluster of considerations with no clear answer. Adding to the confusion is the possibility of just attacking with Confidant. Would they block with Dryad? The answer probably depends entirely on the GAT player’s hand. There is a chance that they would, particularly if the GAT player could just drop another Dryad on the table. Additionally, if the GAT player’s hand is slow, they may wish to trade the Dryad for Confidant. On the other hand, if their hand is robust, they may want to protect it. How much is the additional draw worth versus the danger of a Dryad growing out of control?

The question of what to do right here highlights perhaps one of the most important skills in Vintage. Both you and your opponent have to make value judgments based upon incomplete information. If you can get your opponent to undervalue a particular card or overvalue a different card (or the timing of those cards), you can create small advantages (arbitrage) for yourself that will help culminate in a game win as those advantages weave their way, carrying themselves, into the endgame. For instance, although I value Ancestral Recall greatly, in certain tactical situations, the correct play is to let it resolve.

For instance, let’s say your opponent is tapped out except for one Blue mana but has a bunch of rituals and Black Lotus in their graveyard. They have Yawgmoth’s Will on the stack. Your hand is Force of Will, Polluted Delta, and Brainstorm and you just tapped out to play Mana Drain on their Yawgmoth’s Will. They have two cards in their hand, possibly Force of Will and another Blue card. They tap their last mana to play Ancestral Recall. You can Force it here, but if they have Force of Will in hand, you will counter their Ancestral, but then they can Force your Mana Drain. While this is an extreme and unusual example, it illustrates the dynamic I’m speaking of. Cards have to be evaluated not simply upon power alone, but how they will or will not contribute to an eventual game win. In the Will/Ancestral example, it’s clear and easy to see why countering Ancestral may lead directly to a game loss. This is because the connection is proximate.

In the this game, it is not clear whether playing Echoing Truth on turn 2 will help contribute to a game win more than turn 7 Echoing Truth. The game will unfold in directions that you can only speculate about at this point. The connection between this particular play and the end game will be apparent by the end of the game, but is opaque and murky, even with excellent strategic foresight, at this point in time.

We are dealing with a cluster of known unknowns. What is the composition of the GAT player’s hand? Is it aggressive? Controlling? Slow? Powerful? Weak? Do they have Force of Will or not? Will Dark Confidant produce cards that will help me force through Echoing Truth in the late game? Will playing Grunt now actually work by buying me time or will it just be an annoyance for one turn and then we get overrun?

In short, we can’t know what the correct play is with the limited information we have.

One thing is evident to me. If we had played this matchup 50 times, I’m pretty certain that I could deploy my pattern recognition to help resolve this debate. If the GAT player had experience in these positions they would know whether to counter Echoing Truth or not – how highly to value the Dryad on the board and the tempo advantage gained from turn 1 Dryad versus the two lost spells protecting essentially a turn 1 two-mana investment versus when to just let it bounce up and replay it. Similarly, the Fish player would have a more attuned sense of the risks of involved in playing the Echoing Truth now, versus on their turn before their attack step, on their end-step, or even much later in the game. In addition, they would have experience to tell them if the small tempo advantage of turn 2 Grunt is worth the bite he takes into your resources and whether the GAT player’s response to the Grunt on the table is likely to help you or hurt you.

To recap: our options essentially devolve into:

Echoing Truth – either now, or on their turn – while holding up Stifle.
Attack with Confidant and see what they do – while holding up Stifle.
Play Grunt (holding up Stifle).

Note that the first two options, as I explained above, are not mutually exclusive. Echoing Truthing now has the potential to help us inflict two more points of damage with Confidant. Do those two points matter?

If they have a counterspell, Echoing Truthing now is less likely to get Forced than Echoing Truth on their turn. Also, if we Echoing Truth in response to a tutor, they will be even more inclined to Force the Echoing Truth since they may not have the mana up to replay Dryad that turn.

Although my instinct is probably to try and Echoing Truth on their end-step, the problem is that our turn 3 Grunt might just be too puny to stop a Dryad at that point. There is the final consideration that if they try to break a Fetchland on their second turn, our Stifle might really screw them up and have repercussions for subsequent plays.

It all comes down to what we are trying to do. How badly do we want/need the Dryad off the table? Will the two Grunts be able to handle the Dryad? It is possible either that the Dryad will just grow larger than both Grunts combined or that the GAT player will just wisely hold the Dryad back while the Grunts eventually die. Under either scenario, we buy time to see more cards with the Confidant. There are too many unknowns for me to say what the right play is here. In the absence of information, I’m going to make the play that seems most powerful: wait until the Gro player taps most of their mana on turn 2 and then Truth the Dryad in an attempt to really stunt them.

Pass the turn.

GroAtog draws Regrowth. Solid draw.

We play the Underground Sea, as planned. The reason for playing the Sea before Scroll is so that we can Gush in response to a Force of Will, if necessary.

Now we execute the plan we thought through last turn. Tap the Mox Emerald and the Island for Merchant Scroll (for Ancestral Recall). Dryad is a 2/2.

Tap Sea for Ancestral Recall.

At this point, the Fish player taps the Pearl and the Mox Sapphire for Echoing Truth on the Dryad. This is the most annoying/vulnerable time to try and bounce the Dryad. Once the Ancestral resolves, the GAT player has a greater chance of seeing either Force of Will or Misdirection. Second, the GAT player will lack the mana to replay the Dryad this turn unless they draw Black Lotus or Lotus Petal in addition to another Mox. Even then, getting them to waste those cards is not a total loss.

From the GAT player’s perspective, the question is: 1) Should we Force, and 2) If so, what do we Pitch? There are many considerations at play. First of all, we only have two Blue spells in hand to pitch, Gush and Mystical Tutor.

Here are our options:

1) Let Echoing Truth resolve and be forced to wait until next turn to replay the Dryad. Note that we lose one swing for at least 5 damage this turn if this occurs, damage which is compounded by adding it to swings in subsequent turns.

2) Gush and then Force pitching a Blue spell drawn off of Gush or the Mystical if we don’t draw another Blue spell.

3) Force of Will pitching Gush (this plays into next turn upkeep Mystical for Will and then Will).

4) Force of Will pitching Mystical.

We can rule out option 4 as worse than option 2. If our intent is to pitch the Mystical, then there is no obvious reason not to Gush as we won’t need the mana to fuel and support a massive turn 3 Yawgmoth’s Will (since we presumably won’t be playing Will).

I happen to think that option 1 will probably turn out to be the correct play under many different scenarios and particularly post-board. Blowing all your resources and sacrificing a turn 3 Will to simply protect points of damage is probably not that smart. This is because more Fish players will run more Swords to Plowshares. Expending your resources to protect Dryad will turn out to be a losing strategy in the long run. And what’s more, it’s not even that you are “protecting” Dryad in the abstract, your protecting its growth and the tempo advantage. You can always just replay it. In fact, we have to keep in mind that the temptation to protect it in general errs us towards making a mistake in protecting it.

In my experience as a Magic player, I’ve discovered that players are most likely to make a mistake just as they are on the cusp of victory. The reason for this illuminates the reason why protecting the Dryad here may be the wrong play. The reason players are most likely to make a mistake on the brink of victory is that the stress of the game produces a mental state where the player simply wants the game to end as quickly as possible rather than endure the prolonged stress of the situation. As such, they will make plays designed to make the game end sooner rather than later and be more inclined to miss an obvious play. This has occurred more times than I can recall or count in my observation alone. Similarly here, the Force of Will play may be made not simply because it is the correct play, but with a view toward ending the game as soon as possible. This is not to say that in principle ending the game sooner rather than later isn’t a good thing so that you aren’t susceptible to topdecks or other game swings, but if there is an error to be made, it is probably to be made in trying to end the game sooner than is sound – that is, by taking risks that are not necessary to produce the same result.

That said, this is game 1. One of the most illuminating things that Patrick Chapin brought to the table in the design push to build the Mean Deck was the point that deck roles change dramatically between game 1 and 2. Since Vintage decks pack themselves more fully with answers and hate, going aggro and then exposing yourself to a silver bullet is misassignment of role. Since this is game 1, the Fish deck’s internal answers will be fewer and further between. Going aggro or “all in” here has a greater chance of paying off.

With that balanced analysis out of the way, it seems to me that the soundest play is to simply Force of Will pitching Gush. However, our Ancestral is going to resolve. What will the impact of that be? It’s hard to say. But I am tempted by the lure of seeing more cards and I make the technically unsound decision to Gush based upon intuition in the midst of a difficult choice. If we Gush, we lose our ability to Regrowth Ancestral and Ancestral next turn unless we see another Mox. If we pitch Mystical Tutor, we lose our ability to just tutor up Yawgmoth’s Will. It’s a tough call, but not that tough. Mystical Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will on turn 3 is the obvious and correct line of play.

Instead, I unwisely decide to Gush hoping that I draw a Blue spell.

I flip my two lands to hand and Gush drawing Street Wraith and Mox Sapphire. I cycle the Street Wraith into Flooded Strand. No Blue spell. This boxes me into the play I didn’t want to make and was hoping to avoid. If we want to Force, we have to pitch Mystical. By Gushing, I committed to this line of play. My Dryad is as big as I can possibly make it. I Force the Echoing Truth, pitching my Mystical Tutor.

The plan is now to utilize our tempo to go on the offense and try and snuff the Fish player out before Confidant really wins the game by finding efficient bounce or overwhelming threats.

The GAT player is now at 16 life.

Note that Dryad has two more triggers. Ancestral resolves, drawing:

Lotus Petal
Polluted Delta
Tropical Island

Dryad is now a 5/5. Attack with a 5/5 Dryad. Fish takes 5, going to 12 life.

We have eight cards in hand: lands, mana, and Regrowth, it makes sense to Regrowth the Ancestral now after playing Petal and Mox Sapphire.

Note, if we had just Forced the Echoing Truth pitching Gush, we would have drawn into the Sapphire and Petal and been able to play Mystical this turn, getting Dryad just as large and finding that Will that will most likely end the game next turn.

Also recall that there was some question as to whether the Dryad would be able to grow large enough to contend with a Grunt, this question has been definitively answered.

Pass.

Turn 3:

Confidant reveals Tundra. No damage.

Fish draws Wasteland.

Now, once again, we have difficult options.

We can play one or both of our Grunts and/or Null Rod. There are seven cards in the GAT player’s GY and two in ours. However, if we play Null Rod, we shut GAT off of two of their mana and two of ours. Next turn if they play land Ancestral, they could play more spells with their Moxen. The Null Rod is now looking like a more attractive play.

The only question is whether we need to play both Grunts or we can get away with one this turn and then another next turn.

The GAT player’s hand is a full seven cards. After the Ancestral next turn, the Dryad will be at least a 6/6. There is nothing that just one Grunt can do about that. A Grunt plus a Confidant can kill it if that is all, but we can’t assume that that is all that the GAT player can do unless we successfully resolve Null Rod here.

This is a tough call. Regardless of whether we play two Grunts, I think we can agree for the need to at least play one. Let’s tap the Pearl and the Sapphire and drop a Grunt into play. It resolves.

I think the stronger play at this point is the Null Rod as it really diminishes the plays that GAT can make. Here’s the key: the GAT player has no lands I play, thanks to Gush. We know that they’ll play Ancestral next turn and there is nothing we can do about that. What we can do is prevent any follow up plays by playing Null Rod. They have Mox Sapphire and Mox Emerald on the table already. We can stop the Dryad for growing further and buy more time. If the Dryad just grows to 6/6, and we hold back the Confidant and Grunt back and hope that the GAT player attacks, we can trade our men for the Dryad. The Confidant is also on the verge of becoming more of a liability since the Fish pilot is at 12 life. Ideally, I’d just attack with Confidant here, but that would permit the Dryad player to swing at me for 6, putting me at 12 life, a very dangerous range when I have Confidant in play. I’m potentially two spells away from killing myself. The Null Rod prevents the GAT player from doing more damage to me and from getting the Dryad larger than my men can handle. Moreover, it prevents them from advancing their game plan further.

The alternative is to just play the second Grunt. The advantage of this is that I can double block a Dryad, should he choose to attack, but then he is free to play any spells he wants. The Ancestral could be followed up by Fastbond, or Yawgmoth’s Will, or Black Lotus, or any number of cards, or even just Brainstorm, Jet, Demonic Tutor, etc., and suddenly the Dryad is larger than both Grunts. In addition, the Grunts will once be eating from the same trough and probably die out at the same time.

I reason that if I drop Rod now, there is a chance I can trade the Grunt with the Dryad and then drop another Grunt next turn.

Pass.

GAT draws Mox Jet.

GAT plays Island (since why play a land that could be potentially Wastelanded) and casts Ancestral Recall, drawing Black Lotus, Quirion Dryad, and Tropical Island.

It turns out that Null Rod, while arguably not the clearly correct play at the time, is very good here. The Null Rod is painful as GAT has drawn every artifact accelerant in the deck.

Now we face a tough decision. Should we attack with the Dryad?

If the Fish player blocks with both, the Dryad will die, but the Confidant and the Grunt will be gone and the Fish player will only have 3 cards in hand compared to our full, but pathetic, hand. On the other hand, we’ve dug out almost every single mana source from the deck. Topdecks from here on out should be golden. Alternatively, if the Fish player blocks with just the Grunt, then all the better. Finally, if the Fish player takes the damage, then they are really risking the entire game to Dark Confidant upkeep triggers. They almost have to block with both men. Being at 12 life, they can’t go to 6 and expect to win with Confidant on the table and a growing Dryad.

On the other hand, I could just hold back the Dryad. If can just play one more spell next turn, he’ll be larger than both of the Confidant and the Grunt. I could play any number of spells, like Brainstorm plus Gush and suddenly the Dryad is larger than two Grunts. A turn later, it could be larger still. If I don’t swing, I lose a lot of the tempo I’ve sacrificed so much of my resources and my lines of play on. Too much has been given up in a gambit to end the game quickly. I need to swing in.

The Fish player basically has to block with both men. It’s not ideal, but it’s probably the best trade that the Fish player can make. Note that the GAT player’s motivation for swinging is in part based upon the lack of spells in hand at the moment.

Now that the board has cleared, the tempo is beginning to dissipate, and the steam is let out of the bottle. Men are gone and both players are starting over. The difference is that GAT has a much larger hand (but useless hand) to the Fish player’s slight mana advantage (at least in the next turn or two).

Who do you think is going to win this game? At this point, I’d say both decks are definitely in the game. Fish has a chance to come back and take over here, although the longer the game goes, GAT will see more insane spells that will get it closer to Fastbond combing out, or Yawgmoth’s Will and the same.

Turn 4:

Fish draws: Duress.

GAT has a full hand and is unable to play anything because of the Rod. If Fish were to play Duress, there would be no better time than now.

Fish taps the Sea and plays Duress and sees:

Black Lotus
Quirion Dryad
Tropical Island
Tropical Island
Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta

Fish can hold up Stifle or drop the Grunt now.

It’s pretty obvious that the GAT player is going to play Quirion Dryad off of a Trop and the Island. Grunt is the better play.

Play Wasteland, tap it and Tundra for Grunt. Pass the turn.

GAT draws another Dryad.

Play Trop and tap it and Island to play Dryad.

Pass.

Turn 5:

Fish’s upkeep: use Grunt on my Echoing Truth and Jotun Grunt.

Drawing Mox Jet. Dead draw.

Attack with Grunt. GAT goes to 12 life.

Wasteland the Tropical Island.

Pass.

GAT draws Brainstorm.

GAT plays Trop #2 and casts another Dryad. Attack with Dryad, sending Fish to 11.

Turn 6:

Upkeep, put GAT’s Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, Polluted Delta, and Tropical Island on the bottom of its library.

Grunt has two counters now.

Fish draws Tundra for the turn.

Attack with Grunt. GAT goes to 8.

Pass.

GAT draws Demonic Tutor. Ouch.

Tap Island and play Brainstorm into:

Vampiric Tutor
Street Wraith
Tropical Island

Put back Flooded Strand and Tropical Island.

Dryads are 2/2.

Play Underground Sea and cast Demonic Tutor.

If I DT for Gush, I can make 4/4 Dryads right here and then bash for eight damage, sending the Fish player to three life. The more sound play is just to DT for Time Walk with the plan of playing Upkeep Vamp, and then Time Walking, and then Yawgmoth’s Will.

Dryads are 3/3. I’m only going to attack with one Dryad. There is a chance that if the Fish player draws Time Walk, I lose. Whereas, if he doesn’t, I untap and win.

I send Fish to eight life.

Pass.

Turn 6:

Grunt Triggers. Put Gush, Ancestral, DT, Brainstorm, Scroll, and Regrowth on the bottom of the GAT player’s library.

Fish draws Duress.

At this point, I’m wondering if the GAT player just made a mistake in Tutoring for Time Walk instead of just waiting to Vamp for it. The Fish player thinks. It’s probably going to lose no matter what.

If I take the Time Walk, they untap, Vamp and just Brainstorm or Gush, and the Dryads are 5/5. If we take the Vamp, then Time Walk gives GAT even more damage. This game is over. Fish scoops.

This game was a maze. Both pilots had to just muddle their way through it (note that I piloted both decks). But the point is that the corridors of play were darkened by shadows that overcast every line of play. Each tactical decision that mattered was often so far removed from the small and far off exit door that there was no way to know which path led to the exit. Rats in a maze. Turning left looked just as good as turning right.

Although a number of plays were debatable, I think there were at least one GAT play that was a clear mistake: the casting of Gush instead of Force pitching Gush. The alternative line of play there would have led to a much different ending. There were alternative lines of play that Fish could have made.

Chief among them:

1) Turn 2 Grunt (you would have had to Stifle the first trigger)
2) Playing Echoing Truth on the Fish players main phase – this might not have made a difference, but it would have marginally decreased the chance that GAT would have Forced it. That might have completely altered the mid to late game dynamic that forced the Fish player to trade his two men for the Dryad.

Much like Limited games, one element that is brought into play in this match is the life total. The life total is both an opportunity and a constraint. It is an opportunity for an opposing player to make plays that will narrow the opponent’s tactical options at the same time that it further constrains potential plays that the other play can make. For instance, the Fish player’s 12 life became a constraint on what they could do, and an opportunity that the GAT player could exploit to force a trade. In the abstract, a Dryad may not be worth a Dark Confidant and Grunt in trade, but in that situation, the value of killing the Dryad was much higher.

All of Fish’s alternative lines of play have to be balanced that against the fact that the GAT player drew absolutely awful off of the subsequent Ancestrals and Gush (including almost all of the artifact acceleration and an inordinate amount of land). I mean, GAT resolved two Ancestrals by turn 3! In addition, the GAT player Forced the Echoing Truth anyway. The only difference is that the Fish player may have drawn those Duresses to clear the way. Then again, it may not have.

In short, there were other lines of play, as there always will be, but the GAT player seemed to have the upper hand the entire game. Even if GAT had been on the defensive the entire game, it seems difficult to imagine how Fish could have eventually won. Even Street Wraiths can block in the late game and once most of GAT’s lands were on the table, every spell is going to be a counterspell, draw, or anything that would eventually lead to Yawgmoth’s Will.

Now it’s time to sideboard.

Game 2:

Sideboarding with Fish will be the trick here.

It’s easy to see what to bring in. Ideally we will want + 3 Aven Mindcensor, + 2 Swords to Plowshares, and, I would say, 2 Exalted Angels. The Angels are a huge way to really swing back a tempo advantage that GAT may have.

Let’s see whether this sideboard plan is feasible.

Kataki, War’s Wage is pretty worthless in this matchup. Those can come out. I don’t think highly of Dimir Cutpurse, especially in this matchup. We can cut those. Our Blue count then becomes 20. We need to cut two more cards.

Here are our other options:

1) Daze. Daze is actually strongest in this matchup because GAT is such a super efficient deck. It may be the first card most Fish players sideboard out, but hopefully not in this matchup, especially when they are on the play.

2) Stifles. Stifle is of limited utility in this matchup beyond being a combat surprise to stunt Dryad growth and mana denial by hitting a fetchland. However, it’s Blue.

3) Null Rod. This seems like a better card to cut, and perhaps this is the one. However, you’ll really regret it if you get Yawgmoth’s Willed on turn 3 because of Black Lotus.

4) Duress.

5) Jotun Grunt.

So, those are our options. If we want to keep in Stifles, they are going to compete with Duress, and it seems that we’d rather just have Duress. The real key choice is Null Rod versus Stifle. Since we’re on the play, I’ll go with Stifle. Plus, it’s Blue.

So my final sideboarding plan for game 2 of this match is:

+ 3 Aven Mindcensor
+ 2 Swords to Plowshares
+ 2 Exalted Angel

– 3 Kataki, War’s Wage
– 2 Null Rod
– 2 Dimir Cutpurse

Now, for GAT.

There really isn’t much to sideboard here. The GAT deck has dedicated most of its sideboard space for Ichorid, combo decks, and Stax. However, if we can find room, we can bring in:

+ 1 Fire/Ice
+ 1 Echoing Truth

Our options for sideboarding out are:

Cunning Wish
Other tutors
Street Wraiths
Fastbond
Misdirection
Mana

It seems to me that Cunning Wish is an obvious candidate. Berserk may be important in this match if bouncing over men matters, but it also seems that your general method of victory is not going to come from a single lethal Tog swing, but over an attrition war that is fought over time. Moreover, if bring in Fire/Ice and Echoing Truth, then there are less tutor targets for the Wish.

Because I can’t make a good argument for anything else to cut, I’ll just default to cutting a Wraith.

Turn 1:

Fish’s opening hand is:

Mox Pearl
Underground Sea
Swords to Plowshares
Stifle
Force of Will
Brainstorm
Echoing Truth

Right now, I’m very happy with the Stifles over Null Rod. The Stifles can pitch to Force of Will here or bust a Fetchland GAT might drop.

Also, this hand has all three colors in two mana sources, both of which can be deployed on turn 1. Nice hand.

We play Mox Pearl and Underground Sea. We could Brainstorm here, but I think it makes more sense to leave Stifle open, just in case. If GAT doesn’t go to break a Fetchland, then we can play end of turn Brainstorm. Plus, it is unlikely that anything we get with Brainstorm now will make a difference versus just Brainstorming on GAT’s end-step. The only real cards that could change that would be if we saw like Black Lotus or Mox Sapphire, and even then, they’d have to come with some other impressive cards to create a solid and different turn 1 play.

GAT opened with:

Mox Ruby
Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
Street Wraith
Vampiric Tutor
Duress
Gush

And for the turn, GAT draws another Duress.

This is actually a difficult hand to navigate. You have essentially two options with your first Black mana: Duress or Vamp? If we Vamp now, we could draw it with Street Wraith. Of course, the most synergistic play is to Duress and then upkeep Vamp. However, that leaves open our Sea for turn 1 Wasteland.

Since we have two Duress, it seems like that is going to be a real risk regardless. Moreover, Duress will tell us how we need to respond to our opponent’s hand.

Finally, since nothing in the plan of Duress, Vamp, Duress or any permutation thereof appears to require Street Wraith, we should probably cycle it now.

I cycle the Wraith. Fish has an opportunity to Stifle it here, but declines. GAT goes to 18 and draws Misdirection.

GAT plays Underground Sea and Duress. In response, Fish plays Brainstorm drawing Exalted Angel, Duress, and Polluted Delta.

Before Fish can decide what to put back, it needs to select a course of action. Obviously, we are going to hide Force of Will on top. The question is, out of these amazing cards, which card do we never want to see again? Which card are we going to shuffle away when we break the Delta?

Our options are:

Stifle
Echoing Truth
Swords to Plowshares
Duress
Exalted Angel

Note that I’m assuming we are definitely keeping the Delta and the Force (by putting the latter on top).

To decide this question, we have to evaluate our lines of play and factor in what they might make us discard to Duress.

Here are the options for how turn 2 could play out:

Play Duress and hold back Stifle and STP or Echoing Truth.
Play Exalted Angel.

If we go for the Exalted plan, we have Force of Will to protect it. If we can flip it, pretty much ever, then it is going to be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for GAT to win this game. That’s incredibly tempting. On the other hand, with even Duress plus STP, GAT can’t really mount an offensive. However, on the other side of the ledger, if we play the Angel and can’t even flip it, it’s such a huge threat that GAT will bend its entire game plan over in response to try and address it. While if we play reactively, that might enable GAT’s game plan. It’s a difficult and nebulous question.

Although we really want to get Exalted going, the truth is that Duress before Exalted is probably the better play. There are several reasons for this. First of all, we don’t actually know that we’ll be able to flip Exalted anytime soon. We need to topdeck a Tundra or Fetchland. Thus, there really isn’t a rush to get him on the table. It seems to me that turn two Duress + Stifle and Swords up is just a much sounder plan. For that reason, let’s put back Echoing Truth and Force of Will on top.

GAT’s Duress resolves and sees:

Duress
Polluted Delta
Stifle
Swords to Plowshares
Exalted Angel

It knows the jig is up. It sees that Stifle staring back at it. It plans on Duressing it with the second Duress. So let’s take the Duress for now.

Turn 2:

Fish untaps. Since there is no more Duress in hand, it makes sense to just play the Angel now. A single mana topdeck puts us in business.

Break the Delta for Tundra and play Exalted Angel.

Fish has FoW, Stifle, and Swords in hand, should something go wrong.

Pass.

GAT needs to remove that Angel. We have Echoing Truth and Fire/Ice to do it.

On GAT’s upkeep, I put some thought into playing Vamp. I Vamp for Fire/Ice and draw it. I’m at 15 life. I Fire the Morph and Fish player Forces it, pitching Stifle. I Misdirect his Force, pitching Gush.

Pass.

Turn 3:

Fish draws Brainstorm and Brainstorms into:

Aven Mindcensor
Tundra
Wasteland

I put back Swords and Wasteland and play Tundra and pass with instant speed Mindcensor if need be.

GAT draws Underground Sea. It doesn’t play it. It taps a Sea in play and plays Duress. GAT sees the Mindcensor.

GAT passes. End of turn, Mindcensor comes into play.

Turn 4:

Fish draws the Wasteland and attacks with Mindcensor. It plays the Wasteland and Wastelands the Tropical Island.

GAT draws Psychatog.

Do you play it?

The coast is clear, everything seems safe, right?

I mean, we just Duressed the Fish player last turn and he had only one card in hand, Aven Mindcensor, which he has subsequently played. In addition, he just played Wasteland off the top of his deck.

No problemo, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the thing – when playing Magic, make sure you write down what you saw when you Duress your opponent.

On turn 1 we Duressed and saw Swords to Plowshares. Since the Fish player has played a Brainstorm but had not shuffled, we know that the Swords has to be on the top of his deck. Playing the Tog now would play directly into that.

In all honesty, there is a good chance I would have screwed up here and played the Tog, forgetting that he has STP in hand. Don’t make that mistake. Information is worth its weight in gold.

Turn 5:

Fish draws the STP and attacks with Mindcensor. GAT goes to 13.

GAT draws Duress (!) and Duresses the STP.

Turn 6:

Fish draws a Strand and holds it. Attack with Mindcensor. GAT is at 11.

GAT draws Brainstorm. It plays the Sea and taps out to play Psychatog.

Turn 7:

Fish draws Tundra. It attacks with Mindcensor. GAT is at 9.

GAT draws Flooded Strand. Attack with Tog. Fish goes to 18.

Turn 8:

Fish draws another Flooded Strand. It plays one, attacks GAT to 7 and passes the turn.

GAT draws Tropical Island. It taps a Sea to play Brainstorm drawing Quirion Dryad, Duress, and Echoing Truth.

There are some options, once again. If we can Echoing Truth the Mindcensor, we can gain a ton of tempo. The Mindcensor has to be replayed before it can attack again. The problem is that Mindcensor can be played as an instant, so the optimal time to Echoing Truth the Mindcensor is on the opponent’s turn.

In addition, we probably want to shuffle the library so we can see new cards. Duress isn’t very good here because we’re both in topdeck mode. I think we should put back the Tropical Island and the Duress.

Play and break the Strand for Trop (it’s in the top 4). GAT is at 6 life. Play Quirion Dryad. The idea now is to untap and then attack with Dryads and then on their turn play Echoing Truth on the Mindcensor. That should be the final straw, giving us enough tempo to win the game.

Attack with Tog. Fish is at 17 life.

Turn 9:

Unfortunately, Fish draws Duress, making GAT discard the Echoing Truth, and attacks it to 4 life.

This has put a big wrench in our plans. That topdeck of Duress has appeared to give Fish the tempo swing it needed to win this game in the nick of time.

GAT draws Street Wraith. It’s at 4 life.

GAT has no choice by to cycle Street Wraith into Merchant Scroll.

Lady luck giveth as quickly as she taketh away. We tap a Mox and a land to play Merchant Scroll… and a Gush is in the top 4 cards, along with Lotus Petal, and two lands.

We play Gush, bouncing two lands.

The cards that Gush draws are irrelevant.

Fish is at 17 life. Because of Gush we have four cards in hand, 15 cards in the graveyard, and a 3/3 Dryad.

The four cards in hand are 6 damage, the 15 cards in the graveyard are another 7.5, the Tog has a power of 1, and the Dryad deals 3. That adds up to 17.5 points of damage.

Even if I hadn’t had that much damage, I Gushed into Time Walk.

What a back and forth! When Duress nabbed the Echoing Truth, I thought that GAT was on its way out here. It turns out that the problem with Aven Mindcensor is that you can still search the top 4. And with unrestricted Gush, that’s still a lot of cards to find. There are any number of cards that could have worked out in GAT’s favor in that situation. A Brainstorm could have hit Time Walk or Yawgmoth’s Will, for instance.

Closing Thoughts

The most important lesson coming out of this match is the incredible difficulty the pilots face when trying to navigate through the first few turns. There is an unbelievable amount of tactical ambiguity. Both of these decks are highly non-linear – there are a multitude of potential lines of play and a stunning diversity of ways that these deck’s game plans can unfold. The Fish player has a bewildering assortment of options at almost every turn in the early game. The difficulty is formulating a coherent plan and sticking with it. I selected a course of action, and I was forced to revise that plan.

The foundational difficulty with non-linear decks is that they can win many different ways. I mean, the Fish decks plan can be described as winning with disruptive small men backed up by a mixture of countermagic, disruption, and mana denial. That’s a hodgepodge by definition. Yet it draws upon the strongest menu of spells Magic has to offer. Similarly, although GAT is an aggro-control deck that plays small men that it protects to eventually win the game, the ways it can win the game are numerous. The most powerful endgame strategy is obviously Yawgmoth’s Will. But between just multiple ramping Dryads, a single Berserking Tog, Fastbond plus Yawgmoth’s Will, that is already an incredible assortment of strategic endgames. Add to that the complexity of timing – that is, you can execute these within two turns or within twenty. You can play control and let Fish have its way with you with an eye to an end-game Yawgmoth’s Will, or you can play full-bore forward Forcing every spell Fish plays until they are dead. This exercise opened my eyes to things I may be doing on auto-pilot with GAT that are counterproductive, like playing Gush at risky times or asking me to re-evaluate the tempo value of Dryad. I’m beginning to see more value in adding a couple of Drains back into the GAT deck, perhaps in place of a Lotus Petal and a Street Wraith.

In short, we may know what the plan is, in a greater or lesser degree, but that may provide little guidance in figuring out how to choose among tactical plays that further those plans.

Finally, this little exercise once again reminds me of the great difficulty of playing Fish. The question of whether to play Echoing Truth or Grunt on turn 2 in game 1 was a pivotal decision. In retrospect, the life mattered a lot more than it would have appeared from the outset. And yet we make decisions at the outset. The way that the game unfolded had a lot to do with the bizarre draws that GAT had. Instead of drawing Force of Wills, more Gushes, and Scrolls, it drew land and artifacts. Although the Grunts may not have survived for very long, they could have gotten a significant amount of damage in that would have eventually tipped victory to Fish. However, planning for that was just sheer guesswork.

The Fish player has a very difficult job. On turn 2, it has to make decisions – difficult and ambiguous decisions – in the face of a lot of hidden information (known unknowns, and even unknown unknowns), and these will set its course for the rest of the game. Once the decks moved into topdeck mode, most plays were perfunctory, but the early game is an incredible battle of wits, knowledge, foresight, and intuitive capabilities.

May the best player always win…

Stephen Menendian