Two Decks For Worlds

I still don’t know what’s worse about my past Magic year. The constantly losing despite putting quite some effort into it or the homecoming and having to tell your friends at home (and your boss at work) that once again you made a fool of yourself. I still remember my job interview about one year ago. My boss asked me what my hobbies were, and I told him I played Magic: The Gathering, a strategic card game, at a pretty high level. He asked me how good I was, and I told him I finished in the Top 25 worldwide for the last four years. You can imagine how much fun he makes of me every time I come back after a Pro Tour, only to tell him I didn’t even finish in the Top 100.

My result at the World Championships in San Francisco was once again a big disappointment. But I’m not here to whine (at least not the whole time); I’m here to tell you about the two Constructed decks I played and what I would play if I had to do it all over again.

For Standard, all of my testing was done on Magic Online. I spent about 300 tix buying a whole bunch of Standard playables and made several decks. I started out with R/G Wolf Run, jumped to Green/White Tokens, but finally settled on White/Blue Humans about three weeks before the tournament. My time was limited, but whenever I fired up some gold queues, I basically won everything. I think I lost two matches (winning around 20 against all sort of decks). At Grand Prix San Diego, I gave my decklist to Vincent Lemoine, and he used it to win the Standard side event on Sunday, not losing a single match in six rounds and the top 8. Winning everything certainly feels good, but there is also a downside to it: you stop evaluating every card in your deck, thinking you already have the perfect setup. After the side event, I asked Vincent if he liked the Elite Vanguard in my deck, and he said they were just fine and he would probably not change a card (after all, he had won the whole thing).

We didn’t play another single game with the deck before Worlds. There were only three days left, and we decided it would be better to spend our time testing Modern. Both Vincent and myself brought exactly 75 cards to the tournament hall on Thursday, not even thinking for a second we would have to change some cards. The hall was filled with people playing Mono Red, Illusions, and Green/White Tokens, and I knew Elite Vanguard just sucked against those three decks. But I didn’t bring any spare cards, so I just stuck to what I had, telling myself it would all be fine, as I had enough cards to bring in after boarding against these decks.

This is what Vincent and I played:

U/W Humans

Marijn Lybaert

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (23)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

I was quite confident entering the tournament, but after a few rounds it became apparent that there were some serious flaws in the list. Honestly, I feel like I ran pretty bad during day one, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t look for flaws in my list.

First of all, Elite Vanguard is just bad. I don’t really know why I didn’t notice this during testing (I even received an email from Peter Vieren telling me so). But even after that email, I kept telling myself that he was good for the curve and that he made Moorland Haunt, Champion of the Parish, and Honor of the Pure better. All of these things are true, but the same goes for Gideon’s Lawkeeper, and at least that guy does something.

Second, the deck needed at least one more Plains. I know some versions run one Island, but that doesn’t seem right to me, especially in this version without Mana Leak maindeck. Both Vincent and myself lost games because we were missing a second Plains. I also lost a game because my only lands were two Glacial Fortress and a Moorland Haunt. I’m still unsure if that hand was a mulligan (the hand had a guaranteed turn 3 Geist of Saint Traft against Mono Red), but I would have won that game for sure with a Plains.

The last problem is the number of Angelic Destiny. While the card is fine, three is definitely too much. I might be biased by the fact that I drew three of them in two different games, but right now I think that running two (or maybe even just one) is more than enough. Hero of Bladehold is just so much better and also wins you games.

The sideboard was fine. The Mana Leaks might seem weird, but you don’t really want them against anything else but control and R/G Wolf Run.

If I had to redo the tournament and I decided to run W/U Humans again, this is what I’d play:

U/W Humans

Marijn Lybaert

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (24)

Spells (10)

Sideboard

Modern was a completely different story. Just like everybody else, I had no idea at all what to play. I had a decent Naya Zoo list (which Frank Karsten played to a 19th-place finish) and an okay Jund list. Since all my hopes had already been crushed in the draft portion, I decided to brew something on Friday evening and just run that without too much testing. The few games I played on Friday evening were promising. The idea for the deck was simple: run four of the best cards in the format (Spellskite, Snapcaster Mage, Liliana of the Veil, and Slaughter Pact), and don’t get too fancy with the manabase.

After some brewing and some of the almighty Chapin’s Consultations, this is what Peter Vieren and I ended up running:

U/B Control

Marijn Lybaert

Test deck on 11-27-2011

Modern

Creatures (10)

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (25)

Spells (22)

Sideboard

The deck ended up playing smoothly but could have been a lot better. I built it to beat Zoo and Splinter Twin, but Peter ended up losing three times to Splinter Twin (although we both beat one). I feel that with some more testing (together with 15 people from ChannelFireball for example…), the deck could have been really good. There are several nut draws that both Zoo and Splinter Twin can hardly handle.

Turn 1: discard

Turn 2: removal/counter/Spellskite

Turn 3: Liliana/Thirst of Knowledge + Pact

The early game of this deck is almost unbeatable. Turn 3 Liliana backed up with a Slaughter Pact is obviously insane; Snapcaster Mage with Slaughter Pact is pretty damn sweet; Spellskite is a house in this metagame; and the mana base is as good as it gets (you even get to run four Tectonic Edge against Grove of the Burnwillows).

Unfortunately, the deck has its weaker points as well. Kitchen Finks is not your friend. Blood Moon is not your friend. Punishing Fire is not your friend. Ancient Grudge (after boarding) is not your friend. And any sort of card advantage (like several Cryptic Command) makes it really hard for you. The deck doesn’t have a lot of business (you will mainly kill with your lands), and you can hardly punish your opponent for tapping out (Sword of Feast and Famine is your best chance to finish the game quickly). A couple of fatties (like Grave Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, or maybe maindeck Batterskull) would certainly have helped. Anything to capitalize on your strong early game would be fine actually.

It wasn’t all bad though, and I’m planning to work some more on the deck for the next PTQ season. Modern gives us all the tools to make Liliana of the Veil and Snapcaster Mage really powerful, and I feel like this deck is a good starting point. It’s possible that the deck needs another color (red for Desperate Ravings and Punishing Fire maybe), but I’m not sure if it’s worth losing Tectonic Edge and/or Mutavault.

That’s all I have for you on Standard and Modern for this time. I wish I could also tell you how to draft Innistrad, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t really help in your quest to become a real pro. The last Worlds was certainly not my best one (it was in fact my worst by far), but I still had a great time. I really can’t understand how Wizards decided to stop all this. Competitive Magic is going to be so different next year, and I still don’t know if anyone but Hasbro is going to be better for it. Not only did we just play in our last real World Championships, we also played the last Pro Tour with public events. I’ve been playing Pro Tours for eight years now, and I’ve never been as sad about the future as now. For me, it’s not the end though. I’ve still got a Pro Tour to win :) and I might actually be qualifying on Planeswalker Points for PT Honolulu. Maybe, in the end, everything will turn out to be just fine?

Thanks for reading.

– Marijn Lybaert