Last time, we started with a framework for Unified Constructed deck selection and tuning based on three of the five clashes between Neutral Ground and Your Move Games in the fires of the Grudge Match. We began with simple ways of selecting decks for the upcoming PTQ and Pro Tour format (splitting by color or allocating “good cards” across three decks), and checked out the successes and failures of the various participants.
This time I want to start with the increasingly practical questions of what we would do today, or at least just yesterday, when approaching Unified.
Let’s say you were tasked with building Unified decks for last summer’s Championship Season. For sake of argument, let’s say the format was full Mirrodin plus full Kamigawa, with Eighth Edition as the Core Set (no reason to pollute the waters with Hypnotic Specter at this point). What would your Unified set-up look like?
Here’s a better question: what do you think your average opponents‘ configurations would be?
If the event came before English Nationals, I think the default would be:
Tooth and Nail
Mono-Red Aggro
Mono-Blue Control (Magpie)
This is actually pretty sad. For one thing, I never liked Tooth and Nail (even if I had to grudgingly accept its dominance of US Regionals) and none of these decks were statistically very strong at top tier competition. Mostly, Tooth was the big “Rock” of the format: the foundation and definition of limiting factor. The erratic and powerful Aggro Red deck was mostly there to beat Tooth and get explosive draws. I think that given this assumed framework, the Blue deck would have been bright enough to maindeck Bribery (and sideboard Threads of Disloyalty and Temporal Adept) to actually start out ahead in 2/3 of the matchups.
The reasons this set-up is terrible are multiple. First and foremost, although the archetypes aren’t bumping uglies by vying for the same cards, they don’t utilize many of the best cards in the format. What were the top 10 of last summer?
Aether Vial
Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
UrzaTron package
Plow Under
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Arc-Slogger
Eternal Witness
Vedalken Shackles
Sensei’s Divining Top
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
The presumed default group takes advantage of the UrzaTron package, but it is unclear on a team-to-team basis if it has four copies of Eternal Witness or any Plow Unders. There is no guarantee that this grouping will play four Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author], and many high-placed Red decks of the day didn’t even run four Arc-Sloggers; as such, it is difficult to bias if you conform to the default configuration yourself. Number of projected Aether Vials? Zero.
The more important reason I hate this default set-up is that it is so easy to metagame against. Were I to set up prior to the various National Championships, I would have gone in this direction:
Medium Green
Kuroda-style Red
Mono-Blue Control (Quash)
Again, there would be no maindeck Aether Vials, but I would run four in the board of my Medium Green deck. Greg Weiss and I discussed this at length for Regionals (and you may recall Jamie’s problems with Mono-Blue with his Joshie Green… I recommended the Vial sideboard plan to him). We decided Aether Vial was the right sideboard card for this reason; moreover, it lets this grouping utilize the most copies of the best cards in the format. Obviously, the biggest loss is the UrzaTron package — which is significant — but I think that is counterbalanced by a stronger utilization of the other best cards in the top 10, and so on. This set-up plays four Aether Vial, four Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author], four Arc-Slogger, four Plow Under, four Sakura-Tribe Elder, four Eternal Witness, four Vedalken Shackles, and four Clouded Mirrors of Victory somehow split between Medium Green and Mono-Blue. Moreover, it actually breaks Sensei’s Divining Top rather than just playing that card in a deck that takes advantage of three copies with various shuffle effects.
Secondly, these decks are simply better decks than the ones in the first group. Mono-Blue is a wash, but Kuroda-Style and Medium Green were the #1 and #2 decks by win percentage at the Philly LCQ, and Kuroda held to #2 win percentage at US Nationals even when BlueTooth appeared. While the raw volume of Tooth decks in US Regionals Top 8s was flabbergasting, I’d still bet the deck lacked a supernormal win percentage; both Tooth and Aggro Red had terrible percentage at US Nationals. This is more apparent than at other events because we know of both the volume of the archetypes and their collective lack of placement, something we don’t get with most events.
If you assume the initial (opposing) deck configuration, your matchup expectations look like this:
Medium Green: Tooth and Nail ++, Aggro Red +, Mono-Blue Control = (assuming Aether Vials in the sideboard)
Kuroda-style Red: Tooth and Nail +, Aggro Red ++, Mono-Blue Control ++ (assuming you don’t get gutted by Jushi deck, which is not the default Blue deck pre-French Nationals… even then, it’s not until US Nationals that the relevant sideboards appear in the Remie/Reeves build; that matchup is sadly – to –)
Mono-Blue Control: Tooth and Nail ++ (assuming Quash Blue), Aggro Red +, Mono-Blue Control varies (can be as bad as — versus Jushi Blue)
It’s pretty clear that although my configuration lacks a little raw power when compared with the default, in balance it has commanding deck advantage considering a binary game.
If the conjectural tournament comes after English Nationals, or especially US Nationals, there are various additional monkey wrenches as decks improve. White Weenie (read: Damping Matrix) came out Big Time, and of course BlueTooth was revealed to be the best deck in the format pre-Ninth Edition. BlueTooth actually makes life difficult for the deck allocation because splitting Sensei’s Divining Top comes up in a big way. With the Medium Green / Kuroda-style Red / Quash Blue setup you can throw up your hands and smile, putting Blanchwood Armor next to Eternal Witness and still come out with a good deck. It’s much harder to do that with BlueTooth in the mix, as that deck actually does interesting things with Sensei’s Divining Top: pitching it to Thirst for Knowledge, for example.
One option is to move Damping Matrix to Kuroda-style Red over Sensei’s Divining Top (which is actually how the deck was originally implemented for PT Kobe). I hate this because then Red loses the true Culling Scales incentive, just as the rest of the format gains incentives with more small cost beatdown decks like Rats and White Weenie in the opposing teams’ configurations. The worst case scenario? BlueTooth can play the fourth Serum Vision, fourth Solemn Simulacrum, and fourth Chrome Mox… I know that’s not the equivalent to three Divining Tops, but the deck gains two manipulation cards and another mana, with two of the three cards Thirst for Knowledge fodder. In any case, loss of Divining Top in BlueTooth is significantly less disruptive than in Kuroda-style, even if that deck could gun the Matrix.
One thing that is clear is that post-US Nationals you probably want to adopt Kirk Dalton’s Black splash to Medium Green. While BlueTooth was the best deck of Nationals, Dalton held the only 7-0 record in Standard.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 2 Iwamori of the Open Fist
- 2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Eternal Witness
- 4 Viridian Shaman
- 4 Troll Ascetic
Lands (22)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
This deck, which I just noticed also has the Aether Vial sideboard plan, does a good job of spending top card slots without coming — strategically —into conflict with either team-mate.
Even when my decks win, I get accused of living in my own private metagame; what should be obvious by now is that I am less interested in the accepted methods for deciding what deck to play. I’m more interested in figuring out what other people will play, gaining advantage in the maximum number of matchups in the long term (re-read that last summer section with the projected favorites in each of the expected matchups). As with “regular” Constructed, you can almost always get a greater EV with les powerful decks that fit correctly into the metagame than with big and blunt —but predictable — powerhouses.
That said, the fundamental question you and your team will have to answer going into Unifed is “how to find the baseline.” There has to be some algorithm you use to figure out at least one Alpha deck, whether it is for your own arsenal, or the tent-pole you believe many opposing teams will use in theirs.
A good way to begin is Steve’s method… What are the best cards to play regardless of archetype? Given your knowledge of these cards, what incentives are there to play specific decks?
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Wildfire
Umezawa’s Jitte
Gifts Ungiven
Sensei’s Divining Top
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Yosei the Morning Star
UrzaTron package
Loxodon Hierarch
Hypnotic Specter
I think you’re bonkers if you don’t have the Tribe Elder as the overall best card in the format. Not only is he the Public Enemy #1 for beatdown decks, not only is he essentially strictly better than Rampant Growth (a card the World Champion was happy to incorporate in his World Championship winning deck), not only does he shuffle up for the Top and define our consecutive polychromatic Green blocks… Sakura-Tribe Elder keeps counters off the Jitte. I think I win more games because my opponent missed his first two Jitte counters than any other reason.
Steve has Yosei above Meloku and Theodore K. Cardgame has Hinder and Putrefy in his Top 10 list (him rikey Cliticar Mass). What’s weird to me is how Life from the Loam — clearly a top 10 card in Extended — and Kodama’s Reach — the #2 card in Kamigawa Block — don’t make top 10 this time around, due to the necessity for activators and dilution via competition from cards like Wood Elves and Farseek.
There are a lot of reasonably viable archetypes in Standard, but unlike many archetypes in past formats, they mainly do the same thing until they win. For example, Kamigawa Block Gifts Ungiven, Wild Gifts, Karsten Gifts, Long Homebrew, and even TOGIT Three-Color Control almost have the same game plan until they hit the late turns. One deck locks with Hana Kami, one locks with Wildfire and Life from the Loam, one locks with Yosei and Greater Good, one locks with Enduring Ideal, and one just keeps pumping out the big threats with Jittes attached until the game ends, but they all have the same fundamental game plans of early game acceleration via a Green base and Sensei’s Divining Top selection as they approach late turns. Most of the decks run equipment too.
As such the current format, perhaps due to its fundamentally polychromatic nature, doesn’t have to set up competition the same way other Blocks have. Instead, I think the decks come out as “the Jitte deck,” versus “the counter deck” versus “the Tribe Elder deck.” What is interesting and convenient might be that your Blue deck only wants three Melokus anyway, so your Gifts deck can have its one. What you are going to want to avoid, sadly, are decks like The Critical Mass Update. This deck is basically the Scrooge McDuck of the format, mising Tops, Tribe Elders, counters, fatties and a full set of Umezawa’s “trusty pointers” from every team-mate. Even if the Critical Mass Update is the best deck in the format — which no one to my knowledge is actually claiming —I don’t know that you can play it without literally crippling, one or both, of the other decks… No Ports in your second mana-control deck, anyone?
In my preliminary explorations into the team format, the most difficult thing I’ve come across is the positioning of Sensei’s Divining Top, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Gifts Ungiven. Top and Elder almost necessarily have to go in the same deck at four-and four; however, there is the issue of Gifts Ungiven. This format-defining card doesn’t get played at all in many three-deck configurations; for example, one of my early sets circa “I Hear It’s Great, But Is It Good?” was G/W/b Greater Good (Sakura-Top deck), R/W Boros Deck Wins (Jitte deck), and my Jushi Blue deck from States (unrelated un-greedy Counter deck); no Gifts decks. I’ve subsequently chomped on the Sakura-Top slots with Yosei and Enduring Ideal decks, or mixed in Ghazi-Glare (like I think most teams will), or swapped Wild Gifts (that is a greedy deck) in and out. At this point, I think it’s actually more important for me to spend all my Hierarchs than a lot of the other top cards in the format.
Some people simply like one kind of deck more than any other; in rare cases, their preferences will keep them from playing any other options. For example, Pat Sullivan likes Red Deck Wins and basically hates all other decks. He likes Red Deck Wins so much he played the deck, which looks sub-Boros on paper, to a PT: LA Last Chance Qualifier slot with no Jittes maindeck. I found Patrick’s manhandling of Mono-Blue amazing given how easy Boros Deck Wins was as an opponent for Blue, but Frenzied Goblin got the job done when a slew of better cards simply failed. If you have Pat (or a player like him) on your team, you have a unique advantage and design constraint. Remember Beau James Bradley and his seemingly out of place StOmPy deck? Regardless of what common sense said Beau should have played, he started with his StOmPy, essentially limiting his other two decks to four colors. Remember Lucas Glavin and his Psychatogs? ‘Tog was probably a superb default choice, but Lucas’s tunnel vision with the deck came from a supreme level of confidence in his abilities with this weapon of choice.
Grudge Match 2 Champ Zvi Mowshowitz started with the same predisposition. He made Top 8 of the Pro Tour with My Fires, won a grinder with essentially the same deck, and just added two Kavu Chameleons before taking the whole shebang, all in a fourteen-day period. He loved My Fires, Assault/Battery and all, and took it to his heads up match despite the fact he knew Mouth was going to play the Red Zone.
So Zvi elected to start with My Fires. Fair enough. The deck was arguably the most powerful in the format. This left three colors and multiple strong archetypes. His subsequent follow-up tent-pole was, not surprisingly, Counterspell. This gave Zvi My Fires (his beloved PT deck) and U/W Control, the deck that nearly got him Top 8 at US Nationals some months later. The interesting thing was, even with a Blue Counterspell deck, the format allowed for another Mono-Blue deck, being Skies (Zvi would go on to play Skies at Worlds, and at Grudge Match 3).
Unfortunately, Skies was poo.
Rebels won the Pro Tour, of course, and he hadn’t yet considered it. Bam! Pow! Wap! Here comes the Rebel deck. Unfortunately, he was already spending his allocated copies of Wrath of God on, understandably, his U/W deck, so Zvi did something else entirely. Check these out:
Zvi Mowshowitz
Deck A:
My Fires
10 Forest
5 Mountain
4 Karpulsian Forest
4 Rishadan Port
2 Dust Bowl
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Assault and Battery
3 Ghitu Fire
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Blastoderm
3 Jade Leech
4 Saproling Burst
3 Two-Headed Dragon
Sideboard:
4 Kavu Chameleon
1 Obliterate
4 Simoon
3 Flashfires
3 Earthquake
Deck B:
U/W Control
3 Dismantling Blow
4 Power Sink
4 Absorb
4 Counterspell
2 Dominate
2 Tsabo’s Web
3 Blinding Angel
4 Wrath of God
1 Rout
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Accumulated Knowledge
10 Island
7 Plains
4 Coastal Tower
4 Adarkar Wastes
Sideboard:
1 Disenchant
4 Last Breath
2 Disrupt
2 Disrupting Scepter
4 Millstone
2 Story Circle
Deck C:
W/B Rebels
14 Plains
4 Ruins of Trokair
7 Swamp
2 Dust Bowl
4 Ramosian Sergeant
1 Ramosian Lieutenant
2 Defiant Falcon
4 Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero
2 Defiant Vanguard
1 Ramosian Sky Marshal
3 Steadfast Guard
1 Thermal Glider
4 Crusade
4 Parallax Wave
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Rebel Informer
1 Tsabo’s Decree
1 Armageddon
3 Seal of Cleansing
Sideboard:
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Tsabo’s Decree
4 Perish
3 Mageta the Lion
2 Armageddon
1 Rebel Informer
Zvi got the automatic A pairing of Fires over Skies, then the superb B pairing of U/W over Red Zone (even surviving an Armageddon game), so his C deck didn’t end up mattering. That said, notice how his very specific and limiting framework, followed by testing the assumed Skies, led Zvi to the conclusion of making an all-new C deck. It is entirely possible that, like Block Constructed formats, the specific strictures and scarce resources associated with Unified will force our hands and have us playing things we would not consider given fewer design restrictions in the same timeframe… but it’s not like you can fault the guy for wanting to play Vampiric Tutor.
Hopefully these two articles have given you a decent starting point for your Team PTQ deck decisions. I’m not certain what will be right —Guildpact is just a week away, largely sight unseen — but I’m guessing those defaults will (again) be Counter, Jitte, and Top. Polish up those Glares of Subdual and prepare accordingly.
LOVE
MIKE