1. If your deck doesn’t beat WW game 1, be ready to go home before lunch
This seems blatantly obvious to you all, I’m sure. The problem is that many of you are still going to play decks that will lose to WW. Here’s how I’m sure you’ll try and justify it, “Well my game 1 is only 35-40%, but post-board I get all this random good stuff and surely I’ll defeat whitey!” Yeah remind me how that worked with Affinity guys.
- Will WW see heavy play? Yep.
- Is WW anywhere near as strong as Affinity was? Obviously not.
- Despite question two, does it have good odds on kicking your butt if you choose to rely on the board to save you? Very much so.
Also take into account just because you beat one version, that there could be serious differences. Some run Suppression Field while others run Umezawa’s Jitte and some run more pseudo-removal in Otherworldly Journey and Devouring Light instead of Hokori, Dust Drinker. Or even jank like Hunted Lammasu (Poking Knut = fun). [And dangerous. – Knut, more ninja than you]
Lesson to be learned: Beating the most played deck post-board is wonderful. However if you lose a significant amount of the time in game one, you’ll probably pay for it against the same deck later in the tourney, thanks to mulligans and mana screw.
2. Gifts is the best deck coming in
No matter how awesome you believe your super sekrit teched out W/R or W/R/G control decks are, you still have to worry about Gifts. Certainly the deck is far more beatable than it was in KBC, but it still retains the toolbox philosophy, the best mana acceleration and four of the best tutors / card advantage tools since Fact or Fiction. The deck can handle just about anything thrown at it and those of you expecting to be it with a quick fix solution (cough Suppression Field cough) will be sorely disappointed. Expect the players who have practiced and tweaked their builds to continue to smash your face in, unless you have a card advantage engine to match theirs or massive disruption (Hey guys, have you met my friends Nightmare Void and Shadow of Doubt?) to nullify it.
Basically you can sum it up into: If you refuse to play the best deck, then have a deck that beats it. Barring that, make sure your deck beats everything else.
3. Run enough mana for your deck
For those of you who have been paying attention lately, you’ll notice almost everyone* has switched to multi-colored decks. Even ones without Green! Sadly for many of the non-Green players, odds are their mana base won’t be able to stand up to the rigors of a eight or more round tourney. If you have W/R Boros or U/B Beats, then prepare to drop a couple of games purely because you kept a three-land hand and your deck wouldn’t cough up a off-color mana source. For those who are running the mana acceleration of Green, usually they have their own version of mana screw. The mana problem for these decks is not being able to ramp up to 5-6 mana quickly enough to matter.
*Except you dirty WW players and some people who think MUC is better than U/G or U/B (it isn’t).
The question you have to ask yourself when playing any multi-colored deck is you’re willing to take that hit to the groin every now and then and mulligan some good looking hands with the wrong mana. Mana screw happens to every deck, but every color you add is adding to that exponentially. That’s why I stare in horror at the 23-24 land mana bases many of you are trying to get away with.
B/G Rock / Whatever: Please run 24 lands at least. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen some of these people just fail at making the mana base. Trying to run 10 or more five-mana+ cards or more on less lands is just taking random game losses for free.
W/R Boros: You need the new duals and painlands; it shouldn’t even be a question. Heck you should add some Tendo Ice Bridge just to be on the safe side.
Combo: I’ve seen various Heartbeat of Spring and Eye of the Storm combo run 20 lands or less.
…
No I have no idea how a deck relying on making huge amounts of mana or at least a seven-mana enchantment would want to run that land base without Tolarian Academy. Please think of the children and all the hands you get to stall out on two to three lands.
Lying to yourself about how your deck is going to perform is not only foolish, but just means you fail to learn anything when you lose. People, you need to start realizing that using a small sample size and ignoring statistics is just going to hurt you in the long run. All it does is give you an excuse to whine about how your G/R deck lost to WW because you only drew two lands, when you supposedly had an 80/20 match against it.
Basic rule of thumb: If you can’t explain to someone else why your deck will meet its mana burden, it probably doesn’t.
4. Mono-colored decks are still good
I temper this statement by saying most of them aren’t as good as their multicolored cousins. There are a few notable exceptions however, many of which have to do with two decks, WW and MBC. Needless to say if don’t know why WW is good, you’ve been living under a rock somewhere. As for MBC though…
You remember what I said about Gifts and that whole “best.draw.evar” thing? Yeah I sort of lied about that. Moonlight Bargain is amazing in a deck that can successfully produce Black mana and gain life. Guess what MBC has all wrapped up in the bag here? People love to ignore this deck, but the fact is if you’re looking for huge sweepers, solid draw and swing cards this is for you. Don’t be surprised if you go to States with creatures and end up with no army, no hand and down 14 life with your opponent playing Kokusho, The Evening Star with four cards in hand.
In conclusion, screw MUC players for playing the most boring deck ever and usually losing. MBC players have my respect though, for not giving into the hype of absolutely needing to splash other colors to win a game.
The real lesson that I was getting at? Mono colored decks are by default more consistent and less prone to mana screw than the whorish multi-colored counterparts they have. Players are just lucky not many people are trying to actually abuse Thoughts of Ruin or Wildfire, otherwise beats for everybody.
5. Trick or Treat
It’s States that means you have to be mentally prepared to deal with the trick decks. You know the ones I’m talking about… oh it starts innocently enough. An elf here, a Sosuke’s Summons there, throw in a Fists of Ironwood and suddenly you’re up against a bunch of 1/1’s. Pretty weak. Surely you’re Suntail Hawk, Boros Swiftblade and Skyknight Legionnaire can dodge or bash through for the win.
Wait what’s that? No, it couldn’t be… Noooooooo!
That’s right, you just got kolded by Hour of Reckoning. Eventually you see Chord of Calling and that’s game, boys. Yes I’m talking about random Convoke decks making your aggro decks life miserable. Green’s abilities at making tokens are unmatched, meanwhile white removal can buy some time at getting the slow Convoke spells online.
The same with the Mill decks that seem to be floating around featuring such hits as Glimpse the Unthinkable, Psychic Drain, Induce Paranoia and Twincast. These decks aren’t particularly consistent or fast depending on the draw they get. However sometimes they will get a solid draw that ends up with you decked on turn 6/7.
Another trick deck includes Searing Meditation with Firemane Angel, the Hondens, Peace of Mind and plenty of sweeper effects. It’s not much of a deck, but a few angels in the yard with active Journeyer’s Kite and Peace of Mind can make an aggro deck’s life miserable even without the Meditation. If it does manage to draw it, welcome to the world of bad Slide.
If you aren’t knowledgeable about what some of the more rogue decks weapons are, it’s easy to drop a game and then just lose one post-board to a good draw. So keep your eyes open and when you see a weird or seemingly poor opening, stay on your toes. It’s way easier than people like to admit, but even a bad rogue deck can smash your face if you just walk right into it. Surprise is one of the few advantages they have, if you can just keep a general idea of some powerful, but unwieldy cards it can come back to help you plan out future turns.
6. Life from the Loam is stupidly good
I’ll use examples for this one.
Gifts Ungiven into three lands and Life from the Loam gives a control deck land drops for the next millennia.
Gifts Ungiven into the Urzatron and Life from the Loam makes way too much mana. Chord of Calling, Sway of the Stars, Maga, Traitor to Mortals and other gigantic spells can be expected to come crashing down on your head shortly after.
Life from the Loam in decks that feature sacrifice cards can create incredibly quick recoveries. Decks using Razia’s Purification, Wildfire, Thoughts of Ruin can all get a considerable boost by using the Loam.
In simple terms if you’re playing a control deck, you need an answer to Loam or at least your own. The card’s Dredge ability will simply allow you to place more lands into the grave and with Loam being reusable it makes countering it a very limited solution. Gaining a mana advantage has never been easier and it automatically counters land destruction from mid-range decks. It’s one of the most efficient cards I’ve seen in some time and Gifts is tailor-made for it.
Man I can’t wait until I can use this in Extended.
7. Focus at all times and adapt to your opponent
States is one of the hardest metagames to actually predict. Even if your opponent is playing a known or popular deck, odds are there will be changes to it. A lot of close games will be coming down to how well you can adapt to a tweaked deck in the mirror or a deck you’ve never really played against (See #5). Playing tight and not making obvious mistakes is always great, but if you don’t change your playstyle / boarding plan / role when warranted, it might not matter. This is one of the most important concepts to remember when you play a deck with options. Whenever you wonder why some “jank” or “scrub” deck is 3-0 or something, you want to consider the possibility that his opponents simply didn’t adapt in time (This is especially true with a deck like Gifts, MBC or Critical Mass).
Focus is probably the most obvious statement I can make and that’s why I saved it for last. Focusing on playing tight and not making subtle mistakes is one of the most important skills to have as the day slowly draws to a close. If you aren’t prepared to go the distance with your deck and believe you’ll start playing at 70% or worse towards the end, then you really should go with another deck. Half the struggle of these tourneys is the endurance it entails. Don’t make it any harder on yourself with a deck that’s over your head. You don’t want to be the guy that survived the States blood bath in a good position, only to drop the last round due to a simple misplay.
Finally I’d just like to wish luck to everyone at his or her respective States tourneys. I sadly will be unable to go to my own, since I’ve recently gotten a new retail job. Ah the joy of working on the weekends.
Joshua Silvestri
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom
Proud member of team Reflection and KillerDeathSquid