I wanted to drive to St. Louis for the Midwest Masters Series tournament this weekend, but Cincinnati is pretty lame when it comes to finding people willing to travel to Magic tournaments. So instead of going alone, I skipped it and played in the Magic Online Championship Series. I had no byes going in, which meant I had to win nine of ten rounds to make the final table. The format was Rise of the Eldrazi (henceforth ROE) Sealed with a Top 8 draft. My card pool was certainly nothing to complain about. I went Green-Black splashing Red for two Staggershocks and a Lord of Shatterskull Pass. My bombs were Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Awakening Zone, as well as Pelakka Wurm, Artisan of Kozilek, and Eldrazi Conscription. I won my first seven matches, and then lost two of the last three, finishing in 15th place and earning 12 ROE boosters. The interesting thing about ROE Sealed is that everyone has bombs in their deck. Well, at least everyone that is winning. So pretty much every round I had to deal with an opposing Drana, a Gideon Jura, a Pestilence Demon, a Hellion Eruption, or some other overpowered bomb. Even though my deck was equally potent, eventually I was on the receiving end of mulligans and running out of gas, and so I finished 8-2. Not a terrible showing, but not quite the finish I stayed up until five in the morning to make.
Now that ROE is on MTGO for Constructed, I acquired the cards for my Polymorph deck and have been playing it in 8-man Standard queues in preparation for Grand Prix: Virginia / D.C. / Baltimore. Although not everyone will be attending the Grand Prix, Standard is always relevant, and for people trying to qualify for U.S. Nationals, it is the most important format right now. So this week I’ll share my thoughts on the Polymorph deck, and provide sideboarding strategies and key insights to some of the more common matchups. If you’re looking to play Polymorph, or are expecting to play against it (which you should), this article will tell you everything you need to know. If you’re playing my list, printing this article might prove handy when sideboarding. Remember you are allowed to consult your notes between games.
Here is the list I’ve been playing:
Creatures (2)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (23)
Spells (31)
- 4 Rampant Growth
- 4 Polymorph
- 4 Ponder
- 3 Negate
- 3 Into the Roil
- 3 Spreading Seas
- 4 Awakening Zone
- 4 Deprive
- 2 See Beyond
Sideboard
After the PTQ last weekend I took out See Beyond, Explore, and Garruk Wildspeaker for Spreading Seas and the fourth Negate. After playing a few dozen matches with the changes, I decided I want See Beyond back in the deck. Whenever you draw Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (or Iona, Shield of Emeria post-sideboard), you want to put it back into your deck (and when you draw both copies, you NEED to put it back into your deck), and often you either did not draw Jace, the Mind Sculptor or you do not have time to use Jace’s ability to put the card back. See Beyond allows you to accomplish a mini-Jace effect for half the cost. More broadly speaking, however, the deck needed a few more ways to draw cards and find whatever piece of the combo it is missing. Sometimes you are looking for Polymorph, sometimes a token, sometimes counter-magic, and other times land. In this latter regard, See Beyond essentially functions as an extra Ponder with a built-in shuffle effect. To make room for them, I went back to 3 Negates and only 3 Spreading Seas. I have not really missed Explore or Garruk, since Garruk is basically just a fifth Awakening Zone and Explore does not do much more than Spreading Seas, even in matchups where Spreading Seas aren’t very good.
As far as the sideboard goes, I tried out Vines of Vastwood and Fog over Pelakka Wurm and Overgrown Battlement for the Red matchup. Fog has been excellent, but Vines has underperformed. Some forum-posters from last week’s article suggested that I test Reality Spasm, and that card has been much better than Vines. The Red matchup is still not great, but at least it is winnable with the new sideboard plan. By the way, I’m also considering Canopy Cover, if only for the fun factor of Canopy Covering a Plant Token for the win. In theory, it might be better than Vines of Vastwood or Reality Spasm.
I went 13-5 so far in MTGO matches, but one loss (to Bant) was to an epic punt involving Telemin Performance when I was trying to be cute instead of playing tight. Also one of the wins doesn’t really count, since it was against a 78-card Black-White deck consisting almost entirely of M10 commons. Ironically, the one game was close because his Blinding Mage was holding off my Emrakul as he beat down with Dread Warlock and Acolyte of Xathrid. Eventually I drew Jace, the Mind Sculptor to bounce his tapper and attack for the win, but he got me to single digits and had board control for most of the game. Almost awkward.
Here is the match breakdown of what I played — a fairly accurate representation of the metagame, except Jund is probably a bit over-represented in this sample while Blue-White and Bant are probably a bit under-represented:
Jund 6-1, Open the Vaults 2-0, Polymorph 1-0, UWR Planeswalker 1-0, Grixis Control 1-0, Blue-White Control 1-1, Bant Conscription 0-1, Mono Red 0-2, and 78-card special 1-0.
Mono Red
-2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
-4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-4 Rampant Growth
-3 Spreading Seas
-1 Deprive
+ 2 Iona, Shield of Emeria
+4 Fog
+4 Reality Spasm
+3 Narcolepsy
+1 Negate
This is still one of the toughest matchups for Polymorph, but with a 14-card swap the matchup gets a lot closer. Iona is a decent upgrade to Emrakul, since now a resolved Polymorph shuts off all their spells for the rest of the game. The bigger upside, however, is that Reality Spasm now allows you to actually resolve a Polymorph. Just tap down their mana at end of turn and then untap and Polymorph into Iona. Unlike Mana Short, Reality Spasm can also act as an over-costed Fog when that is what you are looking for. When they play a land pre-combat, which they will often do via Teetering Peaks or landfall for Plated Geopede, you can know it is safe to tap down their creatures and lands. This will give your life total that much more of a buffer for when you cast Polymorph the following turn. Narcolepsy is not fantastic, but it will buy you time by nullifying their Goblin Guide or Plated Geopede. Also of note, sometimes you can mise a game off Spreading Seas by turning their Mountains into Islands and forcing them to tap all but one Red mana to commit threats to the board. Then you can resolve Polymorph with single counter back-up. It won’t happen often, but be aware of the opportunity if it is there.
Blue-White-Red Planeswalker
-3 Spreading Seas
+1 Negate
+2 Reality Spasm
This deck plays out very similarly to Blue/White Control, since they are basically the same deck. The general strategy is to play out an Awakening Zone or a Jace, the Mind Sculptor early, and then sit behind it as the control player. Hard-casting Emrakul off Awakening Zone happens more often than you might imagine in the control matchups. The difficulty with this deck is the amount of cards they have to deal with our game plan. They key is not trying to deal with each of them individually, but rather to get ahead on mana so that you can answer whatever one or two cards they play, leaving them with a handful of Planeswalkers and Day of Judgments that could never get cast. If they get ahead on tempo, which can really only happen if they resolve Jace, the Mind Sculptor first, then you need to dig for Into the Roil and cast it during their end step to set up a big counter-turn or to just continue with the Draw-Go plan. The Negate definitely comes in for a Spreading Seas, but it’s almost a toss-up between leaving in 2 Spreading Seas for their Celestial Colonnades, or replacing them with Reality Spasms. Spasm can set up a big turn by tapping them out, but it’s slow and doesn’t affect the game until late. Neither card is particularly impressive, but you’re better off dedicating sideboard space to the more difficult matchups instead of to this one.
Jund
+1 Spreading Seas
+3 Narcolepsy
-1 Negate
-3 Into the Roil
This is one of your better matchups, and although it is not as popular as Blue-White anymore, it is still one of the most played decks and something you definitely want a good matchup against. In game 1 you want to Into the Roil without kicker their early threat (Putrid Leech or Sprouting Thrinax) to buy you time and to force them to tap mana on a crucial turn in order to keep you under pressure. Play around Lightning Bolt and Terminate, turn their Red lands into Islands, and cast Polymorph at some point. You’d be surprised how many games get out of hand for the Jund player as the game goes late because they generally have no good options on their turns. If they over-commit, you punish them by casting Polymorph. If they under-commit, you punish them by out-landing and out-carding them until winning is inevitable. After sideboard you want to bring in the fourth Spreading Seas (obviously) and the Narcolepsies. Unless they are running Sarkhan the Mad, Narcolepsy is a permanent version of Into the Roil. Both do approximately the same thing, except sometimes if they have Lightning Bolt and Terminate they can recast a bounced Putrid Leech, whereas with Narcolepsy they don’t get that option.
Blue-White Control
-1 Spreading Seas
+1 Negate
This matchup can be anything from a cakewalk to a grudge match, depending on the build. If they are the Tap-Out version, the only cards you have to worry about are Path to Exile and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. If they are the heavy counter-magic variant, you want to go for the long game of sitting behind counter-magic while building up mana via Awakening Zone. The difficulty is figuring out which version they are. It’s usually best to conserve an Into the Roil either for Jace, the Mind Sculptor or for Oblivion Ring. It’s also good to save your counter-magic for a crucial turn (or for their Jace, the Mind Sculptor). This means not wasting it on things like Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Day of Judgment (unless you have Emrakul out already). If they have a lot of counter-magic you can side out the remaining 2 Spreading Seas for 2 Reality Spasms, but it’s a close call. It’s also generally not the right play to run out a Polymorph on turn 3 or 4 if they can untap with Day of Judgment or Jace, the Mind Sculptor mana available.
-1 Spreading Seas
+1 Negate
I think we are a pretty heavy favorite game 1, but they can gain access to a lot of powerful cards after sideboard to potentially make the match difficult. The first game is all about advancing your board early while they do nothing relevant in the first five turns. Then once they are at six mana, you wait with counterspell in hand for their namesake card and then cast your own namesake card the following turn. Or if you have a good enough draw you can accelerate the process by going off early and then countering their Day of Judgment or bouncing their Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring. If they bring in discard or counter-magic, you might have to play more conservatively. They could also potentially bring in Meddling Mage. Just don’t get blown out by Time Warp, thinking you have another turn to set up before they get to six mana.
Bant (either Mythic or Conscription)
-3 Spreading Seas
-1 Negate
+4 Fog
This matchup is all about who can mount the largest, most epic attacks. Our plan is to attack for 15 and blow up all their permanents. They can easily top that in some combination of Rafiq of the Many, Eldrazi Conscription, Baneslayer Angel, Finest Hour, and random exalted effects. Both decks have some mana acceleration, but they have a bit more. The tradeoff is that we have more permission and control elements in the form of counter-magic and Into the Roil. We also have better card access with Ponder and See Beyond (and Jace, the Mind Sculptor against versions that do not have him). I haven’t tested the matchup extensively, but the matches I’ve played usually come down to a battle of wits. The onus is on the Bant player to take the initiative and ‘go for it’ first, since Polymorph is the deck with inevitability if the game goes late. Bant’s best chance is to curve out and win early while Polymorph is still trying to set up and put all the pieces together. I opt not to side in Narcolepsy because if they get a Knight of the Reliquary in play they can search out Sejiri Steppe to knock off the aura. This line of play does generate some tempo for us, but overall I think the other cards in the deck do more for us. Fog can buy a crucial turn at a minimal investment, especially after Polymorph resolves. Annihilating all the opponent’s lands makes Knight of the Reliquary very big, and so having a Fog effect just seals the deal and allows you to attack with Emrakul without losing to a counter-attack. Just don’t do like I did one game (post-sideboard) and cast Polymorph with the other Emrakul in your hand. If they then cast Telemin Performance trying to Legend rule your Emrakul, they will be surprised to find out they just decked you and won the game since you have no creatures in your library. Oops!
Good luck to everyone playing in Nationals Qualifier tournaments this weekend. I’m planning to attend a PTQ on Sunday, probably the one in Indianapolis. I bet you can’t guess what deck I’ll be playing…