I designed a new deck and played it at the PTQ at Neutral Ground New York last weekend. Actually you will probably notice it is an updated take on an old strategy that I have liked since the printing of Mental Note with Judgment.
Threshold 2K4
4 Careful Study
4 Deep Analysis
3 Intuition
4 Mental Note
1 Rushing River
2 Wonder
2 Genesis
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Roar of the Wurm
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Flooded Strand
4 Forest
7 Island
1 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Yavimaya Coast
Sideboard:
3 Chill
4 Submerge
3 Stifle
4 Naturalize
1 Forest
Like Zvi Mowshowitz, you may be wondering at the lands. I would have ideally had all Flooded Strands and Windswept Heaths, but in this deck, it doesn’t actually matter which Onslaught lands you play. When people over the course of the day asked me what I was playing, I actually had the pleasure of saying”a deck with Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Wooded Foothills, Krosan Reclamation, and Rushing River,” and then watching them walk away, heads shaking.
The sideboard should have four Chills, but I don’t know what happened to mine and I could only mise three. Stifle was pointless. I didn’t even bring it in against the Psychatog decks I played against. There should only be three Naturalize… I never sided the fourth in even against Pattern.
Though it looks a little janky, this deck is actually quite amazing. First of all, you will win probably four games in a day for no other reason than because your opponent will assume you have Circular Logic. The number of whiffs on Cabal Therapy alone should tally up to a Time Spiral in the first few rounds.
The other main thing to think about is the comparison of this deck to the more typically seen U/G Madness deck. How can I say this? Madness is… unkind. I haven’t played a Madness deck since Regionals 2001 when Brian Kibler handed me one, and even though Rabbit made Top 8 with it, I can’t conscience ever playing the Madness again. Every time I have this sort of deck, my opening hand is two lands, a Wonder, an Arrogant Wurm, two Circular Logics, and a Deep Analysis or some such. In the rare games that I get to draw a Wild Mongrel, it is invariably Smothered on turn 2, if not the victim of a Force Spike.
U/G Threshold, especially if no one is expecting it, is a much more forgiving version of the same concept (undercosted guys who fly). It has fast beaters and Wonder as well, but much more flexibility in terms of how it can be built. It has better mana because in the early game, Mental Note and Werebear increase the mana ratio, and in the late game, Onslaught lands reduce likelihood of being flooded. While not as explosive as U/G Madness, Threshold is in my experience more consistent.
I actually had Chrome Moxes and only twenty lands in the initial build, along with a full compliment of Accumulated Knowledges. I cut the Chrome Moxes after a few days of testing, when I realized that I hated them, and that I never played turn 1 Wild Mongrel or Werebear, even when I had access. I only liked them when I could play a fast Nimble Mongoose with Threshold, but even then, I usually had to make bad decisions, like throwing away a Mongrel or Werebear to keep a Careful Study. Accumulated Knowledge was a harder cut. Both Rabbit and Ted Knutson said that Deep Analysis was better. I had three copies of Deep Analysis in my sideboard and one main, but I was siding them all in against Psychatog and The Rock (what I thought would be the most common matchups), and I never really had time to use Accumulated Knowledge after Intuition anyway.
After not winning the PTQ last weekend, I’ve put some thought into how I could further improve the deck. The most obvious way is to use the proper Onslaught lands and sideboard a Plains, rather than a Forest. This will let you play Ray of Revelation instead of Naturalize, and possibly Worship. The upside of Ray of Revelation is that it is much more synergistic with Intuition, as well as being cheaper overall. The downside is that, even though you have Worship access with White, your game against Red Deck Wins can get worse because of your inability to remove a sideboarded Ensnaring Bridge.
Matchups:
Psychatog
This is a relatively easy matchup. Psychatog wants to get into an attrition war with you and win with card advantage. Instead, you get into an attrition war where they have difficulty killing your main threat (Nimble Mongoose), and you recurse everything else with Genesis. The matchup depends on a number of factors, like whether they have access to Isochron Scepter with Diabolic Edict on it, or if they have any Upheavals at all… if the answer is”no” to both questions, it is your matchup to lose because Nimble Mongoose just holds off Psychatog indefinitely while you beat them down with Wonder-enabled everything else.
I had Stifle for the three-color version, but I ended up not siding it against the one three-color Tog deck I played. He got a bunch of Isochron Scepters, was forced to Upheaval defensively, and basically set up a board where I was playing the threats first.
Most of these sad folks don’t even have Hibernation.
The Rock
This is a complex matchup where you generally win if you play properly, but where few players play properly. Basically you get Wonder and two guys and kill them. They can only block with Birds of Paradise, so they go down relatively quickly because your guys are 4/4s for two and 6/6s for four. Their main defensive plan is to use Pernicious Deed, but they just end up killing their own stuff and letting you play out the guys you were holding back. In the longer games, you crush them with Genesis and Roar of the Wurm, which is actually what you do in a surprising number of matchups anyway.
“Right now people aren’t playing The Rock. They’re playing random Black and Green cards. They disregard the main attraction of The Rock – access to the toolbox – in favor of just more monkeys or something.”
—Jon Becker
As one of Becker’s best friends, I can assure you that if he were playing the rock, his box would be full of such tools as Spike Weaver, Masticore, and Jolrael, Empress of [hog]Beasts.
As I said, this is a complex matchup because The Rock lends itself to a good deal of customization (Jon Becker The Rock would have not nearly as many Deconstructs as Adrian Sullivan and Adrian’s would not have as many Buried Alives as the Shark’s); it is therefore not a simple statement to say that you should always win.
For instance, if your opponent is playing Buried Alive plus Genesis plus Bone Shredder, you are in for a rough game if you don’t have the Krosan Reclamation. The other guy might have Withered Wretch, which is not only an efficient creature but also destroys your strategy. It is also conceivable that you will get wiped by Haunting Echoes (but that is probably too slow if you get a hot draw). The main thing to remember is not to make their Deeds too good, or play directly into their flexible answers… unless you want to prove me wrong or something.
Red Deck Wins
So Patrick Sullivan won a PTQ the week before with RDW. He loves RDW. He gave his RDW build to CMU-TOGIT teammate the Rabbit to play. Here is a conversation we had just prior to the PTQ.
michaelj: What do you do if I play a turn 1 Nimble Mongoose?
Rabbit: (interjecting) No! Wait!
Pat: I block it.
michaelj: I’m not attacking you, silly.
Pat: (pauses) WHY CAN’T YOU JUST PLAY A REAL DECK? (storms off)
Pat and I actually played a bit, later.
In the first game, I kept a double Nimble Mongoose hand with a lone Forest for land. I got to play the teeny weenies, but ultimately scooped as Pat hit me with Blistering Firecat when I had yet to draw a second land.
Pat: I’m leaving now that we know this is a 100% matchup.
We played another one where I didn’t stall on mana and I destroyed him. I made the stellar play of not discarding Deep Analysis to Wild Mongrel to save it from a Mogg Fanatic ping. I figured I was about to hit four mana… but then again, I had two Roars in the bin.
So I guess it is a 50% matchup, right? Just kidding.
RDW is actually a pretty good matchup for this deck. Nimble Mongoose is a nightmare for them. Your little one-drop trades with or outright kills every creature in their deck and can’t be removed. Back in 1998, we developed a deck called TDC Heat that you might have heard of. It was a saucy little G/R deck similar to the Three-Deuce decks that came two years later, but with cards that weren’t as good (that hadn’t been printed yet). TDC Heat was quite nice against the Sligh decks of the day. Though we had everything from River Boa to Uktabi Orangutan to trade, our favorite beater to draw was Jolrael’s Centaur. With no more power than a River Boa, more mana required to cast, and a notorious lack of the ability to smash a Cursed Scroll, you may be wondering why this guy was so good.
The reason is that he traded with Jackal Pup or Ironclaw Orcs (cards that cost less mana) every time… and sometimes even Viashino Sandstalker (particularly good times). He never got Incinerated or tapped by a Fireslinger. He always got his man, saved us at least two life, and would contribute to a Lhurgoyf later. Nimble Mongoose is like a Jolrael’s Centaur for one third the mana, that is sometimes a good deal larger. In the early game he makes Pup and Goblin Cadets very unexciting. In the midgame, the opponent will often not risk running into even a 1/1 Mongoose for fear of a Mental Note or Intuition.
In game 1 your goal should be to manage your life total. Scare him away from attacking or get into every one-for-one trade that you can that will keep your life total out of death range from a Firecat. You are playing 4/4 creatures for two and 6/6 creatures for four. They cannot reasonably race you if you keep their burn out of striking distance for lethal damage. You have all the card advantage, so it is okay to devote your early game to defense and attack with only one guy at a time.
After sideboarding you get Chill. Chill is better than anything that they’ve got for you. Their men are Red, yours are Green, and their Firebolts now cost three times as much mana. I would suggest bringing in some number of Naturalizes because you might lose to Ensnaring Bridge, but Chill plus Deep Analysis (and to a lesser extent Genesis and even Roar of the Wurm) can serve as Ensnaring Bridge defense in a pinch. They have no other real out against your Chills.
Losing to RDW is going to happen sometimes. Their deck is both fast and just plain good. It has burn and you don’t have any counters. When losing does happen, it is usually going to be about a Pup followed by a Rishadan Port and further mana disruption. Your deck is very cheap, and can operate at victory capacity with only two lands, but you have a lot of pain lands and are still susceptible to color-screw. Watch it.
The main strategic difference you encounter when playing against RDW rather than anything else, is to lead with Wild Mongrel rather than Werebear. Though Zvi will chastise you for playing Wild Mongrel first against almost any other opponent, Werebear, unlike his cousin the Mongoose, is a two-mana Lava Dart magnet in this matchup. If you can at all avoid playing him prior to Threshold, do so. He is infinitely more valuable later in the game, and unlike other matchups that don’t involve lots of direct damage and Cursed Scroll, you might not get a the time to resurrect him via Genesis.
Madness
This matchup heavily favors you over many games. Unfortunately, in real tournament settings, you only have three games to prove how good you are, and as we all know, these three games don’t always line up as planned. In general, you should take game 1; it won’t be pretty, but you will come out on top much more often than not. This is because the typical Extended Madness deck has either Waterfront Bouncer or nothing for bounce, and even if it has Bouncer, as long as you don’t feed the other guy Roar tokens on a silver platter, you win a fight between Bouncer and Genesis by a wide margin.
U/G Madness will almost always develop its offense more quickly than you will. Your Onslaught lands are not going to be kind here, and you will probably give up a lot of life early as his 4/4s come online faster than yours do. That’s okay. Just don’t give up the twentieth point!
Madness is a lot more draw-dependent than Threshold (it needs a Madness engine to work at higher efficiency than, say, a sealed deck), but it is also given to the possibility of a more ridiculous opening game. On the other hand, your non-offensive development outstrips Madness because of more cantrips and Werebear (even as a 1/1). His Wild Mongrels are going to be a little better than yours straight up, but not over the long haul. You have more card drawing, more Roars, and infinite Trish trading from Genesis that lets you punish him with even the stupidest blocks.
His real advantage is in permission. Daze is kind of terrible in the matchup, because board development is so important (and once in a while it will erase Wonder)… but Daze can still counter important cards like Intuition when he appears tapped out. If you can get him to counter your creatures from a stalemate position, though, you should be able to win most games: he is trading real cards in hand for your Genesis activations.
Madness has no direct damage, so just make sure you guard that twentieth life point. This isn’t RDW: if he can’t punch through, you aren’t going to die. Genesis and Krosan Reclamation give you an edge over time as long as you can keep him from overwhelming you while you force him to trade real cards for your temporary resources. Even from one life and a locked board, you can Intuition for the game by going for Wonders and Krosan Reclamation into an alpha strike. The games you lose will occur when he starts countering your card drawing or Rushing River instead of your infinitely replaceable creatures.
That being said, like every format since Odyssey Block, the U/G mirror (or quasi-mirror) can be very random. No matter how tuned and prepared you are, you can lose the matchup an alarming number of times when you get the wrong draw to his appropriate draw. If he has cards like Aether Burst, you probably have no advantage, because he can set you back turn after turn while whittling away at your life total. Along with mana flood and mana screw, the U/G mirror also offers Wonder screw. If he has Wonder and you don’t, you can’t block and he can, and it’s just a tragedy because you so deserved to win. It’s okay to whine: you know you deserved it.
Wow, you must be saying to yourself, U/G Threshold really is a great deck! It is favorable against all the expected opponents! How did you not win the PTQ, michaelj?
Well, the first answer is that I was not allowed to win. The PTQ was the same day as my wife’s birthday party. When I asked her if, in a position to win $500 or be late to the party, which I should choose… she glared at me over the top of her glasses.
Secondly, there is this awful deck that is not one of the top Decks to Beat… but beats the hell out of my deck. That deck is Enchantress. While in other unexpected matchups you still have tools (like keeping yourself alive with Krosan Reclamation against Brain Freeze or bouncing Visara with Rushing River), you don’t even have relevant sideboard cards against Enchantress (Naturalize as a one-for-one is less than pathetic because he already drew three cards off of that Fertile Ground or whatever it is). I quit testing the matchup after the third or fourth game where I was down ten cards and staring down a Birds of Paradise with Rancor… again, it was humiliating.
With White Weenie winning in Boston and any number of other odd decks such as Aluren and Dump Truck in this format, there should probably be some changes made to the deck or sideboard. I think that one Upheaval main or side would be a nice addition, particularly against WW. WW is the kind of deck that is out-classed in every way by every non-Red deck, but can still beat you in maddening fashion because you can’t block his Soltari Monk while he desperately chump-blocks your 6/6 turn after turn, or wins on one life with Worship in play.
Aluren is probably also a difficult matchup to win, but at least you can do stuff like Naturalize his Aluren with Living Wish on the stack or something. I’ve never playtested the Dump Truck matchup, but Ben says that his deck isn’t good against Careful Study and Wild Mongrel, so that’s good enough for me (but that Exalted Angel always scares me, even if he only has three).
The only dicey thing about running only one Upheaval is that with Mental Note, you can end up losing it randomly, and therefore randomly losing. Arcane Laboratory is another card that might slow down Enchantress and Aluren, but its application is very narrow.
edt used to say that the best recipe for winning a PTQ as opposed to simply doing well is to make the deck that you are bad against very narrow, and then just never hit it during the day. This will allow you to make your deck as focused on winning as possible against all the decks it can actually beat while at the same time not wasting infinite sideboard space. Even if you lose, you’ve always got that one match to give in the Swiss. And let’s face it, if there is a deck to not be good against in this format, Enchantress, as opposed to Psychatog or RDW, ain’t a bad choice.
Anyway…
R1: Psychatog
I keep a hand of 2 Genesis, 1 Roar of the Wurm, 1 Flooded Strand, 2 Wooded Foothills… and a Mental Note against an unknown opponent.
[Zvi] I know how you can become the best Magic player in the world. The next time that little voice tells you to follow your own theories… Listen To It.
[BDM] Of course he kept… he had the Note.
I resolved Mental Note and Intuition and basically demolished him with my graveyard.
He was only two colors with no Chrome Moxes, so I just swapped out my Krosan Reclamation for the spare Forest. Krosan Reclamation is nice because he might have a Wonder, but I decided I’d rather have a land in the early game than worry about him blocking with one of the very few creatures in his deck.
Zvi has some more in-depth stuff to say about this matchup, and after exchanging some emails, I’m sure he has a better recollection of the details of what happened, so I’ll let him do so and move on. He actually wrote an article about this round in between my writing this report and my sending it to Ted. I will concentrate on the analysis and the next six, I guess.
1-0
R2: Draco
He told me he went to time against Tog and won on turn 4 of overtime. After he played Islands and Polluted Deltas, I put him firmly on Tog. Even after he laid a Mountain, I had him on Tog and played according to the Tog plan. I ran out some paps and took a lot of damage from my own Deep Analyses, Onslaught lands, and so on.
Then of course he laid the Scroll Rack and I knew he was Draco.
I couldn’t then change my style of play because I was already below sixteen, so I just left mana open to bluff the Circular Logic and had kept him on a two-turn clock.
At the end of my turn, he played Mystical Tutor with one mana open and the Scroll Rack untapped. I had to assume he was holding Draco and counter protection, and was searching up Erratic Explosion. I thought for a while with Mystical Tutor on the stack, and decided to Rushing River his Scroll Rack.
What does this play do?
In his ideal world, Mystical Tutor resolves, Erratic Explosion goes to the top of the library, then exchanges places with Draco via Scroll Rack. He afterwards plays Erratic Explosion with Draco on top of his deck to kill me to death.
By bouncing his Scroll Rack, I force him to either use the Rack now or never. As I thought he would, he Racked away Draco (and two other cards, possibly more Draco), and when Mystical Tutor resolved, he did not get to dictate the top of his library beyond finding Erratic Explosion.
Staring down a Wild Mongrel and a Werebear, he bravely targeted me with Erratic Explosion… and didn’t win.
I think I sided out Wonders, Rushing River, and Krosan Reclamation for Forest and the Chills. In hindsight, I think this was awful. Even though Rushing River won game 1, that’s not why it was awful. Krosan Reclamation is two saucy shuffles on the opponent’s deck, and essentially counters his combination… though I didn’t think about it like that on Saturday. I’ll have to remember Krosan Reclamation for next time (in the unlikely event that I again face Draco the next time, that is).
Oh well.
Game 2 I stayed over sixteen and forced him to try to Sonic Burst a Werebear… which cost him his Erratic Explosion.
2-0
R3: U/G Madness
All went according to plan. I got into trades and Trished him with Genesis. I could have set up Wonder / Krosan Reclamation but never had to.
Game 2 I was forced to Submerge as a hard-cast against his all-in Wild Mongrel. I won. Go five mana cost bounce spells!
3-0
R4: U/G Madness again
Rabbit told me he was Madness, and I said it was a good matchup (cue foreshadowing).
First game, he gets me to one but I stabilize with Wonder and better guys. He is on ten but I am confident I am going to win despite the fact that he has Intuitioned for Roars the previous turn. He has already spent two Dazes and three Circular Logics when he sends a Roar and Arrogant Wurm into my team of Werebear and double Mongoose. I play Rushing River with the intention of smashing him to death with Krosan Reclamation the following turn in a single strike. He has one card, but it is unfortunately the fourth Logic. I trade my guys, set back up with Genesis, but lose to a Looter to the jaw immediately following.
Game 2 I once again spend the five mana on Submerge for the win. What is with these magicians who do not play any Forests? Are they gaming the system?
Game 3 is dumb. He has Forests… but no Island. Neither of us have Islands, so Wonder and Submerge are irrelevant. I fall behind at some point and start playing defensively. He misses a bunch of land drops, but is getting mad card advantage off a Looter. At some point, I Careful Study away a Rushing River and Wild Mongrel, keeping a Yavimaya Coast and Submerge, then play the Coast and pass. Rabbit later informed me that this was awful, because I probably needed the River to win, but doubly so because I had already played a land that turn. How embarrassing… almost as embarrassing as dying to Looter damage.
3-1
R5: Psychatog again
Let me tell you about Nimble Mongoose… if they don’t get Scepter/Edict they lose to it. He drew two cards per turn by Ice on my Werebear, but the Mongoose got him… a completely uninteresting smashie smashie.
Usually Tog can win the Trish wars because it has superior card drawing via Accumulated Knowledge and Fact or Fiction. You have Deep Analysis that draws more cards than their baseline card drawing, and Genesis that draws infinite cards. They don’t even necessarily win the Upheaval games because you respond with the ever-annoying Nimble Mongoose (that’s what happened in game 2, actually). I’m not sure if that is a thing of beauty… or just very sad.
4-1
R6: Enchantress
I knew he was Enchantress from playing next to him earlier. I also knew Enchantress was next to unbeatable. Rabbit made a valiant effort of trying to convince him to draw with me, with the Don’t You Know Who This Is line, but alas, he came to play.
I’m sure I made some awful mistake, because I lost game 1 with him on two life, and had cards in my hand when I scooped (not counting those put there by his Words of Wind). I probably shouldn’t have traded that Nimble Mongoose for a Cloud of Faeries on turn 2 or something. I couldn’t really do anything else offensively, because he had several Seals of Removal in play… but as I said, he won at two, and I had cards in hand, so I must have done something awful.
I sided in my Submerges, but then sided them out again because I thought maybe they’d be dead in my hand. I wouldn’t want to Submerge while he was going off with Clouds, and if he only drew Argothian Enchantresses, they would be terrible… So obviously he played turn 1 Xantid Swarm. Ah the indignity! Submerge would be good! I don’t even have any counters! He won at two again by successfully chump blocking Wild Mongrel with this powerful Xantid Swarm!
God, who doesn’t take the draw? Who sides in Xantid Swarm against no counters? For the love of God, who loses to Xantid Swarm?
4-2
R7: Pattern
I kept quite a stainsy hand with no action until turn 4 (a Deep Analysis). I put him on The Rock due to his Treetop Villages into Yavimaya Elder, so I didn’t think it mattered… Then he went and played an Academy Rector and a Pattern of Rebirth!
I got him to a one-turn clock with Werebear, Nimble Mongoose and Mongrel, but he went and got Visara with his Pattern (can’t Krosan Reclamation that). He missed a lethal attack on me, so I decided to all-in his Visara with Genesis down. Interestingly, he did not miss lethal two turns in a row.
Second game I got him low very quickly with a huge board advantage, but he played Worship. Even though he was Pattern, I didn’t side in Naturalizes because I thought he was a combo-Pattern deck, rather than a utility one (you will see from the motley crew of enchantments played this game how wrong I was). So I had just one Rushing River to get rid of the Worship. I attacked him with him on one, and he blew a Deed for three Nimbles, two Werebears, a Roar, and a Mongrel or something, leaving his Rector and Worship, but killing some irrelevant (?) mana creatures.
As is usually the case against Deed, even though he seems to have gotten massive card advantage, I had a Mongrel back and a Genesis down, meaning that I was favored. On his turn, he played a Llanowar Elves and a Parallax Wave, hiding the Mongrel. I brought back Nimble Mongoose. A turn or two later, I attacked, put damage on the stack, and Submerged his guys (luckily he killed his Birds). This game was scary, because I tried to Intuition for triple Careful Study while digging for Rushing River but must have mis-counted them and got a Mental Note for my troubles (how embarrassing part deux).
Third game, after I realized he had all kinds of enchantments, I brought in three Naturalizes. I smashed him down and forced him to Rector for Worship, which I promptly Naturalized with lethal on the stack. I actually had Krosan Reclamation and could have just countered the Rector’s ability with it, but I thought it would be better to let him have the Worship in this case, because I had the Naturalize. Rector was a pretty expensive 1/2 for him because now that I think about it, I had Krosan Reclamation all three games, and the only time he ever got to use its ability, I killed him anyway.
I’ll probably play this deck again at the last PTQ here on the East Coast (Connecticut on the 31st). If I figure out a way to beat Enchantress, I may actually end up winning my quota PTQ for 2004.
Bonus Section: Spot that Sullivan
In this article, we were introduced to TOGIT co-owner Patrick Sullivan. In case you ever get confused, here is an easy matrix that will allow you to differentiate him from Star City Feature Writer Adrian Sullivan.
Adrian | Patrick | |
Build | Skinny | also Skinny |
Last Name | Sullivan | also Sullivan |
Preferred Red Deck | “Like Sligh, but with bad and | “Wins” |
Best GP | 5th Memphis 1999 | 7th Philadelphia 2002 |
Best PT | 10th New York 1999 | 9th Boston 2002 |
John Shuler | “Is friends with…” | “Would kill a man for…” |
Affiliation | Cabal Rogue | CMU-TOGIT |
Notable Barn | PT Finalist Brian Davis | PT Champion Osyp Lebedowicz |
Method of defeating michaelj upon first acquaintance and name of sighing associated PT Champion | Though I had already tapped him out, I used an Abeyance on him anyway and ended up being two points shy of a lethal Drain Life via Cadaverous Bloom… much to the chagrin of a watching Bob Maher. | Though Patrick’s board included two Soltari creatures and a Phyrexian Negator and mine included a Necropotence, I elected to move to a non-existent draw step rather than pay the upkeep on my Masticore… much to the disappointment of a visiting Jon Finkel. |
See? It’s that easy.
–michaelj