You know what really grinds my gears?
Poker.
Ace King suited, pot odds, no limit hi lo yin yang Omaha arse biscuits.
Now, don’t get me wrong… I actually enjoy playing poker from time to time. A few friends, a few beers, a pack of cards, and a ten quid buy-in. Or a night at the local casino from time to time, throwing down with roll-up-smoking welders and drugged-up students. All good times, win or lose. Better when I win, obviously, but that’s a given.
No, what really grinds my gears about poker is what it’s doing to Magic. And, in particular, Magic Online.
I’ve lost Magic friends to poker… guys who used to sling spells week in, week out. Some of them I hardly see any more, and some I haven’t seen for years. To my knowledge, none of them have cracked it big, Dave Williams style. Of course, folks change, and interests wane. Maybe it’s not the poker that’s stolen them… maybe they were fading before the bright lights and the promise of wealth sapped their imaginations.
So there are folks and friends that’ve hung up their Magic boots in order to pursue the Ace of Spades. I bear them no ill, although I do miss them. I hope they make it big, I really do.
But when those folks who play Internet poker come back for a quick draft on Magic Online… then I hate them with a frigging passion.
I’ve been drafting a lot lately, in preparation for UK Nationals next month. All 8-4s, some successful and some hideous. Win, lose, no matter… it’s all grist to the mill, and I hope to learn with each pick, tap, and play.
One thing I’ve noticed, especially lately? The amount of horrendous pauses in the play of my opponents. And I know, know, know that these pauses stem from my foes firing up the online poker tables while they sling spells.
My turn 1. Untap, upkeep, play land, go to my end step… huge, three-minute pause.
Their turn 1. Untap, upkeep, draw. Huge three-minute pause. Land, go.
My turn 2. Untap, upkeep, draw, lay land, cast Goblin Skycutter. Does it resolve against your seven-cards and your one Swamp? Well, let’s wait four minutes to find out.
Yeah yeah, I know what you’re saying… ooh, but they might be answering the phone, cooking pasta, putting their kids to bed, sexing their wives, downloading Monkees snuff slashfic, doing all manner of other, important things.
Bollocks.
They’re playing online poker, probably multiple tables. And you know they are.
It happens too often for it to be coincidental. And the pauses are just enough time to rattle through a hand or two (I’ve played a little online poker myself, before I realised it was just so duuuuuulllllll). We all know that every self-respecting Magic player is little more than a poker millionaire in training… look at the facts, and they all add up.
Man, it pisses me off.
You know why? Not because it’s poker, not because it’s the game that appears to sap my social circle and dull the eyes of many a fun friend, reducing all our conversations to tedious Risk stories ("and then I rolled a five and a three!"). And not because it throws me off my game and sends me on tilt – hell, I’ve plenty of things to do while I wait for them to work out the pot odds. I’m connected to the Internet, after all.
It pisses me off because it’s rude.
In real life Magic, concentration is key. People are usually focussed entirely on the game. I’ve played against folks who’ve been listening to iPods while they’ve played me, which I think is both rude and slightly creepy, but I’ve never played anyone who’s been sat there playing f***ing Carcassone while we’ve battled for a Top 8 slot. But online, it seems, the poker tables are fair game while playing Magic. Anything to legitimatize our hobby, amirite dawgs?
I can’t stand rudeness. It’s unnecessary. It’s also an unavoidable side-effect of the Internet, as everyone is twelve foot tall in cyberspace. When I read of people who refuse to wish their opponent "hello and good luck," I feel sad. When I play someone who refuses to shake my cyberhand with a "gg," win or lose, I taste copper in my mouth. I’m mild-mannered, and generally a smiler. But sometimes you’ve gotta fight fire with fire.
So here’s two-fingers to those of you out there who multitask the draft queues and the poker tables. Stop it. You’re wasting everyone’s time, and you’re being an *sshole while you do it. It’s ill-mannered, and unnecessary.
Play poker. That’s fine. Play Magic. That’s also fine. Hell, play ’em both… just not at the same bloody time.
Because if you spread yourself too thin, and annoy your opponent in the process, then everybody loses.
…
I’m gonna do things a little different this week. Instead of spending time waxing lyrical over each and every Top 8 I list, I’m gonna throw all seven up for your perusal straight away. Then, after that, I’ll break down the numbers and draw my overall conclusions. And I’ll bring up a couple of decklists too.
After all, there’s only so many times I can type "it seems Green/White Tarmogoyf is very popular at the moment" before you’ll wanna gut me with a egg whisk.
These past seven days have seen a total of seven Block Constructed 2x Premier Events. Let’s see how they panned out…
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 63 players, #986800
1 – _MAJOR_ – U/B Teachings Control
2 – Tinkiwinki – B/R Akroma Control
3 – thorgores – U/B Teachings Control
4 – JockeD – G/U Tarmogoyf
5 – riggers – U/W Pickles
6 – RoofTopRocker – G/W Tarmogoyf
7 – Nut.Low – G/U Tarmogoyf
8 – SzULeR – Wild Pair Slivers
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 60 players, #986802
1 – Djinn_ – G/W Tarmogoyf
2 – ivo7781 – White Weenie
3 – Bombaypl – White Weenie
4 – aristides – Mono-Blue Pickles
5 – _beule_ – B/R/u Akroma Control
6 – Der Dauerloser – Mono-Red
7 – Dish – Four-Color sliver / Tarmogoyf control?
8 – _MAJOR_ – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 55 players, #987368
1 – MongT – U/B/w Teachings Control
2 – dcleve – Wild Pair Slivers
3 – Jaya Ballard – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
4 – rastaf – U/B Teachings Control
5 – LgMichielli – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
6 – fivefloors – Mono-Blue Pickles
7 – FFfreak – G/W Tarmogoyf
8 – MacAFee – Didn’t show
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 63 players, #987682
1 – _beule_ – B/R/u Akroma Control
2 – wojas – U/B Teachings Control (Pickles)
3 – JWay – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
4 – Hadzis_cz – U/B Teachings Control
5 – crazypond – U/B Teachings Control
6 – D e n T z – G/W Tarmogoyf
7 – Tussius – U/B/R Mishra Control
8 – Resident Genius – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 41 players, #988128
1 – Hadzis_cz – U/B/W Teachings Control
2 – _LondoMolari_ – U/W Blink
3 – _beule_ – B/R/u Akroma Control
4 – Tilt1983 – Mono-Blue Pickles
5 – _Swistak_ – Mono-Blue Pickles
6 – lordrandom01 – U/G Pickles
7 – .sdmgames – Didn’t show
8 – Syous1979 – G/R Big Mana
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 42 players, #988464
1 – Jaya Ballard – G/W/r Tarmogoyf
2 – _LondoMolari_ – U/W Pickles
3 – Raven_1 – U/B Dredge
4 – GD_Cabelo_ – Wild Pair Slivers
5 – pirulin – U/B/W Teachings Control
6 – Ace King Suited – G/W Tarmogoyf
7 – Tinkiwinki – B/R Control
8 – filipe – U/B Teachings Control
TSP Block Constructed 2x Premier Event – 57 players, #988584
1 – dadadad – U/B Teachings Control
2 – islands – Wild Pair Slivers
3 – D e n T z – G/W Tarmogoyf
4 – Lucindo – U/B Teachings Control
5 – lordrandom01 – G/U Tarmogoyf
6 – The Electric Factory – G/W Tarmogoyf
7 – Dark Circle – Mono-Black Nihilith
8 – GeneralKenobi – R/G Big Mana
Okay, so that’s a lot of data. Let’s see how it breaks down, a la Top 8 appearances:
G/W/(r) Tarmogoyf – 1111111111111
U/B/(w) Teachings Control – 111111111111
Wild Pair Slivers – 1111
Mono-Blue Pickles – 1111
B/R/u Akroma Control – 111
G/U Tarmogoyf – 111
U/W Pickles – 11
White Weenie – 11
G/R Big Mana – 11
B/R Control – 11
Mono-Red – 1
Four-Color Sliver / Tarmogoyf Control (?) – 1
U/B/R Mishra Control – 1
U/W Blink – 1
U/G Pickles – 1
U/B Dredge – 1
Mono-Black Nihilith – 1
Yes, ladies and gents… it’s official. Tarmogoyf is here to stay. The straight aggro versions, G/W and G/W/r, make up the majority of the Top 8 statistics, even if that winning margin is a single Top 8 spot. The Little Lhurgoyf That Could (a.k.a. Mr T) also made a splash in some more fringe decks, including the popular G/U Tarmogoyf deck (that utilizes a soupcon of countermagic as disruption) and the Four-Color Sliver / Tarmogoyf Control deck that frankly confused me. Hey, there’s always one.
As we all know, G/W Tarmogoyf took the recent plaudits at Grand Prix: Montreal. Here’s the winning decklist, which is the perfect starting place for the archetype.
Creatures (19)
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
For those looking for Tarmogoyf with a Red bent, try this list as a base:
Creatures (17)
Lands (23)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
I’d suggest that, online at least, the Riftsweepers now seem largely superfluous… sure, they can be good against suspended Aeon Chroniclers, but you wanna make them early in order to beat down. With Mono-Red largely disappearing from the overall metagame, the threat of the Gargadon is illusionary at best.
Second up, we have the control deck of choice… and no, it’s not Korlash. Here’s Montreal Top 8er Shouta Yasooka’s list:
Creatures (9)
Lands (25)
Spells (26)
This is a little different to the lists floating around the MTGO Top 8s… Tombstalker and maindeck Venser are definitely not standard. However, the base is there, as are the main elements of attack and control. And hey, the guy made a Top 8 with it.
Creatures (24)
- 1 Mystic Snake
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Gemhide Sliver
- 1 Might Sliver
- 3 Telekinetic Sliver
- 1 Darkheart Sliver
- 4 Dormant Sliver
- 3 Frenetic Sliver
- 1 Reflex Sliver
- 1 Whitemane Lion
- 1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Lands (22)
Spells (14)
And to round out the Top 4 decklists online this week, we have Kenji’s Mono-Blue Pickles (incorrectly labelled in out deck database as U/B Pickles… can YOU see a Black spell?)
Creatures (19)
- 2 Willbender
- 3 Brine Elemental
- 1 Fathom Seer
- 4 Riftwing Cloudskate
- 3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
- 2 Venser, Shaper Savant
Lands (28)
Spells (13)
Looking at the Top 8 statistics, there are two things that leap out at me. First, there’s a distinct lack of Mono-Red decks. One made Top 8, but it was dispatched early. It’s easy to see why… after all, the Green/White Tarmogoyf deck is/was designed to feast on last week’s Big Thing. Green/White is on the up, so Big Gargs is going down.
The second leaping fact, and this is a truly surprising one, is that there’s literally zero Korlash Control decks in the entire week. What, was Paul Cheon hard work and final finish all for nought?
Where are the Korlash decks? Seriously! It should make short work of the Green/White deck, if played and tweaked correctly… and it has plenty of game against the control decks too. Is it that folk just ain’t got the Korlashes? I find that hard to believe.
If you’re looking for fringe performers, then the U/W Pickles deck looks very promising (See Kyle Sanchez article for more info on that). Bouncing multiple lands early, and returning Coalition Relics and charged Dreadship Reefs seems pretty cool especially when backed with evasive beats. The U/W Blink deck also looked pretty sweet, with multiple Maelstrom Djinns beating down after being Blinked at end of turn.
The Red/Black Akroma deck also seemed pretty cool, powering out sweepers like Damnation and Void before dropping the Firebreathing Red A-Bomb and sweeping up. Later in the week, it appeared that the deck moved towards a touch of Blue for Aeon Chronicler… and who can blame it?
White Weenie, the format’s early favorite, made its present felt in one solitary format, where it placed second and third. Is this a sign of something bigger? Frankly, I doubt it.
To round off, there are a few truly rogue offering this week. The Mono-Black Discard Nihilith deck looked fun, although it didn’t truly crack the top table. There’s also a dredge deck, along the lines of Tiago Chan Reanimator strategy from a few weeks back. And Tussius brought us a fun-looking Mishra deck, which I’m sure has Mike Flores quietly whispering "neener neener" into his pillow at night.
If I were playing an Online Block tournament tomorrow, I’d bite the bullet and shell out for Tarmogoyfs. It seems that, out of the Big Two going in, that the two-mana Lhurgoyf is outperforming the four-mana black Legend with room to spare. Maybe Korlash ain’t all he’s cracked up to be…?
(There, hopefully the online price will plummet, and I’ll be able to pick up my four.)
Whatever you chose to play, remember that the information is there, and we can easily build from the Top 15 decklists at Montreal. A solid foundation, and knowledge of the metagame, should be enough to bring us some success.
Well, that’s my hope at any rate.
See you in the Tournament Practice room!
…
That’s it for this article. Block PTQs are upon us, and I for one will be trying my best this weekend to pick up an elusive Blue Envelope. What will I play? Well, I’ll tell you next week.
Until next time, remember – you can’t stop the signal.
Craig Stevenson
Scouseboy on MTGO
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2
Ungrateful Dead
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