I’m continuing with the Ultimate Extended Tournament. Round 1 is in progress. Some matches are
done. What won? Force of Will — almost every time. What lost? Beatdown. Can modern decks
compete? Maybe. One made it through round 1. A few matches have not yet finished, but we have judges
watching them for slow play.
Here are the results so far. Match by match coverage is below. If people disagree with any results,
let me know — but I want facts and figures on why the results are wrong. “But I like deck
X better” ain’t gonna cut it. I say that about Turboland, and look how that came out.
table
I explained the tournament
here. The decklists, for the most part, are here. Better decklists for PT
Junk and Cephalid Life are in the forum discussion for that article.
The results so far:
Enchantress slaughters U/W Tron
I described this matchup, in detail, last article. Enchantress had a bye.
Trix versus Twiddle Desire
(still in progress)
Stasis stops CMU Gun
I talked a little about this in my last article. I was also short a sideboard. I even emailed Randy
Buehler; I did get an answer, but not a sideboard. The best options the deck could have would be Red
Elemental Blast and Disenchant. It certainly was not running CoP: Blue or anything like that. I decided
to give CMU Gun its best options, with 4 REB and 4 Disenchants available. Actually, all I could find room
for were four REBs and two Disenchants. The REBs replaced the Wastelands, and the Disenchants replace the
Firestorms. The Swords stay, because Stasis is going to bring in Masticores. It did: I pulled one
Claws, one Boomerang, and the Spellbook for three Masticores.
This battle comes down to a couple of fights. Stasis has to choose those carefully. It can’t
really fight the land fetches, so Tithe and Land Tax resolve. That means that Scroll Rack absolutely
cannot. If Scroll Rack resolves, Gun gets far too many threats for Stasis to counter. (How many —
well, assume Gun gets two Land Taxes in play, and has fewer lands in play. It Taxes, twice, for six
cards. It draws for the turn, then puts all the lands back with Scroll Rack. It’s drawing seven
cards a turn. Sounds good.) If Scroll Rack does not resolve, Powder Kegs can nail the more threatening
creatures that get cast early. Eventually a Masticore will show up and gun down anything with legs.
Morphling also helps, although it cannot contain a Soltari Priest. Masticore does it in for two mana.
I’ve played this matchups a couple of times, with different people, and I keep coming to the
same result. CMU can steal one here and there, but Stasis wins.
High Tide drowns GobVantage
Wow, is High Tide fun to play. You cast High Tide, so all your Islands produce an extra U every tap.
Then you cast Frantic Search, and untap them again. Another High Tide, and you tap your Islands for UUU
each, and use Thawing Glaciers to put another Island into play. You cast Turnabout to untap all your
lands, Thaw out another Island, Merchant Scroll for another Turnabout or High Tide. Once your hand gets
nearly empty, you cast Time Spiral to shuffle your hand and graveyard into your library, then draw 7 new
cards. Then you do it all again. By the time you are done, you have generated seventy-odd mana, have a
Force of Will and Counterspell in hand, and use Stroke of Genius to make your opponent draw their entire
deck, plus a couple of cards.
GobVantage wants to stick a turn 1 Lackey, and then beat like a maniac. Turn 1 Lackey, turn 2 beat
with Lackey and put Warchief into play, then play two Piledrivers. Next turn, smash for a bunch. The
deck also has some amazing tutoring power, with Goblin Recruiter to stack your deck, Goblin Matron to
fetch individual Goblins, and Goblin Ringleader to put cards in your hand.
I played this match out myself, because both sides are completely goldfishing.
I played a half-dozen unsideboarded games, just to make sure I understood the matchup. Goblins won
one game, after High Tide mulliganed to five and got stuck on two Islands. The games were close, but Tide
was usually pulling it out a turn or two before it lost — and more if it could Force or counter
critical early Goblins.
Sideboarding was fairly simply for High Tide — Counterspells came out for Blue Elemental Blasts.
For GobVantage, the Pyrostatic Pillars are game-winners. The Pillages are also great — anything
that slows down High Tide. Deciding what to take out was harder. In the end, I yanked the three
Incinerators for three Pillages and the Sparksmith, two Fanatics, and a Siege-Gang Commander for Pillars.
High Tide was winning. It managed to Force or BEB a turn 1 Fanatic to win fairly easily twice. It
also cruised through a few games where it could get an early Thaw, then Turnabout and win comfortably.
Then came this game, the one where I decided to call the match. Goblins is on the play.
Turn 1: Mountain, Lackey, go
Turn 1: Island, Brainstorm, go
Turn 2: Mountain, beat with Lackey, put Warchief into play, Piledriver (Forced), Piledriver
Turn 2: Island, Merchant Scroll for High Tide, go
Turn 3: (miss land drop) Matron, beat for twelve, put Recruiter into play, stack deck, go
Turn 3: Island, High Tide, High Tide, Frantic Search (floating U and drawing High Tide), High Tide, Time
Spiral (floating UUUUUU), Brainstorm, Merchant Scroll for High Tide, High Tide, Turnabout, Impulse into
Time Spiral, Time Spiral…
Stroke self for 24… Stroke opponent for 72 cards.
Win.
On turn 3, off three Islands. In the end, I had cast High Tide eight times, had cast three of the
four Time Spirals and could easily have generated another hundred plus mana, if there had been any reason
to do so. I haven’t played this powerful of a combo deck since, well, since an hour ago, when I was
playing Jar Grim. That’s another story.
High Tide wins going away.
Maher Oath tames Angry Ghoul
This matchup pits Bob Maher’s GP: Seattle Oath list against the Angry Hermit list he played at
the Masters two years later. That’s interesting — but the format had rotated in the interim,
so the two decks are from very different metagames.
Oath revolves around Oath of Druids, which combines with Gaea’s Blessing to recur the deck
endlessly, provided your opponent has a creature. It also has a solid Counterspell suite, an insane
amount of card drawing (Brainstorm, Impulse, and the completely nuts Abundance / Sylvan Library combo.)
Finally, Oath has Enlightened Tutor and a raft of silver bullets. Unfortunately, the silver bullet it
really wants in this matchup — the Phyrexian Furnace — is in the sideboard.
Angry Ghoul is a very good Reanimator deck. It has Exhume and Reanimate and similar goodness. It
also has Hermit Druid, which can dump the entire library into the graveyard and produce a huge Sutured
Ghoul as early as turn 2. But, other than speed, the deck does not have many answers. The one it does
have is that, after the Hermit Druid mills away the deck, he can be used to flash back Cabal Therapy to
check for Swords to Plowshares, which is very bad for Sutured Ghouls.
Angry Ghoul can also win with the Entomb a fattie turn 1, Exhume turn 2 plan. Avatar of Woe is
probably the best option here, since it cannot be blocked and can kill the Oath player’s fog machine
on legs (Spike Weaver) on the Oath player’s turn, after Oath has failed to trigger. That will let
the Avatar beat for a turn. The Sutured Ghoul works best, however, because the Oath player is going to
dig for Oath, and for another one once the first is in play. Sutured Ghoul wins on the turn it appears
— other creatures face Oath producing a stream of Fogs.
Two Oaths are game over, unless the Angry Hermit player can find a Ray of Revelation. Otherwise, the
Oaths keep finding creatures and / or shuffling the graveyard back into the library via Gaea’s
Blessing, and the Oath player can pretty much fog every turn until Angry Hermit is decked.
Sideboarding: For Angry Hermit, add the Swamp to ensure mana for Cabal Therapy, the Coffin Purge, and
Ray of Revelation. The added land does interfere with getting the instantly lethal Sutured Ghoul, but the
odds of pulling that off are slim in any case. Being able to fight seems better.
Maher Oath loses some of the less useful silver bullets, including Ivory Mask, Null Rod, and Aura of
Silence, and brings in the last two Oath of Druids, Phyrexian Furnace, and Compost. That means that it
needs to cut one more card — and the card to cut is Morphling. You want to Oath every turn, if the
opponent sticks a creature. Morphling will not win a race with Avatar of Woe. Instead, you want to get
the perpetual fog machine in action. You can always win by deckling, or by putting a ton of spike
counters on a Treetop Village and beating down. Morphling is only good as a Blue card to pitch to Force
of Will, and that is not enough to keep it.
The games were either very short (e.g. Angry Ghoul comboed on turn 2) or long and complex. It’s
not worth the report. In the end, Maher Oath won pretty convincingly: 3-1 in every match played, as I
recall.
Beat Stick beats on TurboLand
This one makes me sad. TurboLand is one of my favorite decks. It so should have won — but it
suffered from having to deal with a problem — Isochron Scepter — that simply did not exist
when the deck was built. Had I modified the sideboards (for example, adding Krosan Grip) things might
have been different. Of course, modifying decks invalidates the whole idea of the tournament: seeing how
the best decks ever played match up against one another.
Game 1 Turboland managed to Force a turn 1 Scepter on the draw, which, combined with a mulligan, left
it short of cards. However, the cards were Forest, Exploration, Island, Horn of Greed. It soon drew into
a second Exploration, a Gush, and another Horn of Greed. Two quick Time Warps and a bunch of card drawing
later, it had eight cards left in its library, nine cards in hand, and a Scroll Rack. At that point,
Turboland can cast Gaea’s Blessing targeting the second Blessing, a Time Walk, and a third card.
That, plus Scroll Rack, means that Turboland can take infinite turns. Which it did.
Game 2, with Turboland on the play (I alternate play and draw), Beat Stick opened with Hallowed
Fountain, Chrome Mox, Isochron Scepter imprinting Orim’s Chant. Turboland managed to break the lock
one turn (via Counterspell) and got an Exploration and Horn of Greed down, but could not beat a second
Scepter with Lightning Helix.
Beat Stick did not sideboard. The Dwarven Blastminers are useless in this matchup, and all the
one-offs are better left in the board to be tutored for via Cunning Wish. Turboland, on the other hand,
had an embarrassment of riches. It wanted the Back to Basics, the Powder Kegs, and more. In the end, I
sided in the four Back to Basics and two Powder Kegs for the Treetop Village, the Thwart, one Oath, one
Horn of Greed, and the Spike.
Sideboard game 1, Turboland managed to Force yet another turn 2 Scepter, but soon had to face Meddling
Mages naming Force of Will and Back to Basics, plus a Scepter with Fire / Ice. Turboland managed to
resolved Powder Keg. Once Keg swept the board, Back to Basics locked down Beat Stick long enough to win.
Games 4 and 5, Beat Stick had incredible draws. In each game, Beat Stick had opening sevens with
Meddling Mages, Sensei’s Divining Top at least one Chrome Mox and a couple fetchlands. Turboland
managed to resolve Back to Basics both games — once turn 3, and once after Powder Keg had killed the
Mage naming B2B. Turboland’s draws were nothing special, but Beat Stick showed the incredible power
of Top plus fetchlands, and added a lot of luck on top of that. In game 3, Turboland had seven lands, an
Exploration, a Scroll Rack, Back to Basics, and Oath of Druids. Oath had also given it Morphling. Beat
Stick has some locked lands, plus Top, Mountain, Island, and Plains. It also had both Chrome Moxen
imprinting Lightning Angels, a Meddling Mage naming Powder Keg, an Isochron Scepter imprinting Fire / Ice,
and an Isochron Scepter imprinting Orim’s Chant, and an Isochron Scepter
imprinting Lightning Helix – all by turn 15.
It’s all about the matchups. Can you imagine Turboland resolving Back to Basics against TEPS?
Oh, well, won’t happen now.
Benzo versus The Clock
(still in progress)
SuperGro versus Affinity
Some of the Affinity players didn’t like this list. (Mike, I’m looking at you!) They
really wanted a Skullclamp version, rather than a Vial / Meddling Mage deck. I stand by this list. While
Skullclamp might be a bit more consistent, and speed up the kill a turn, those builds would have no chance
of interfering with a powerhouse combo, like Jar Grim or High Tide. A turn 2 Meddling Mage on Megrim or
Tide at least gives you a chance. Cabal Therapy alone won’t cut it. However, the mana is shaky in
this build. Mike had a lot more mulligan-to-fives than the turn 2 Frogmite, Frogmite, Enforcer, Enforcer
hands.
I played this match out a couple times. SuperGro kept winning, mainly because Affinity has no good
answers to 1) Gro’s Meddling Mage naming Cranial Plating and 2) Mystic Enforcer. And while
Affinity’s turn 3 Frogmite, Thoughtcast, Frogmite, Enforcer is good, SuperGro has Quirion Dryad,
float mana, Gush, Brainstorm, Swords that guy, Foil that spell — and now the Dryad is bigger than
the Enforcer.
Sideboarding was simple for SuperGro — the really bad Winter Orbs became really good Annuls.
Affinity’s options were not as good: it wants Seal of Removal, Cabal Therapy, and Engineered Plague
for the Dryads. Playtesters disagreed about what to take out. In the end it does not matter. SuperGro
consistently won this matchup, but it often took five games.
Legion Land Loss destroys TEPS
Some people questioned the inclusion of Legion Land Loss in this tournament. However, I think it is
one of the best decks to take into any unknown format. It has twelve one-mana accelerators, sixteen
land-kill spells and four Rishadan Ports. This deck will kill lands on turns 2 and 3 most games – and it
is hell on any deck with a fragile manabase. It also runs Stunted Growth (put three cards from your hand
on top of your library). When you are mana screwed, and desperately trying to draw that next land,
nothing is as big a kick in the balls as Stunted Growth. About the only downside is that the deck does
not have a ton of threats; sometimes it has to win with Elf beatdown.
TEPS, on the other hand, is another one-big-turn combo deck. Its goal is to play a bunch of mana
acceleration and some color fixing card drawers, then storm out a win. The deck is fast, consistent and
somewhat resilient. People had argued that it should be included in the Ultimate Extended Tournament
because “the only reason it is not Tier 1 is all the Orim’s Chants, and similar hate, being
played today.” Part of that “hate” is land kill, because TEPS manabase is its
glass jaw. I routinely beat TEPS with my bad online Extended decks, because my decks run 4 Ghost Quarters
either maindeck or in the side, and that, alone, beats TEPS.
My pre-match prediction was that LLL would connect with that glass jaw every time.
I’m pretty familiar with TEPS, but I am not sure I am really expert. The difference between good and
expert is usually one turn – which is huge with a combo deck. If you don’t believe me, look at the
description of the High Tide / GobVantage match. High Tide won by going off on three Islands. It
required some lucky draws, but it also required very tight play with the High Tide deck. Pilot errors
would have lost the match. I’m not sure I’m as good with TEPS, and I didn’t hook up with an
opponent who knows TEPS well. Because of that, I gave TEPS a cushion: if any game looks really close
— close enough that I think a better pilot might have pulled it out — the game does not count.
(Likewise, in postmortems, if we agree that either player made a major play mistake at some point, we
skip that game and play another.)
Game 1 showed the best, and worst, of both decks. It also showed that the LLL deck was not shuffled
enough, but that’s another matter.
LLL won the flip and opened with Forest, Wild Growth. TEPS opened with a Sulfur Vent. LLL played
Forest, Wild Growth #2, Thermokarst. TEPS played a Tinder Farm. LLL played Wasteland, Thermokarst # 2.
TEPS played another tapped land, and it was Wasted. LLL played Wall of Blossoms into Elf, and passed.
TEPS did nothing on its turn.
Three turns later, TEPS had no lands, but it drew and suspended a Lotus Blossom. LLL had played more
lands, another Wall of Blossoms and Stunted Growth.
LLL had nine Forests, a Rishadan Port, three Wild Growths, Wall or Blossoms and two Elves. TEPS had
literally nothing in play, and was at ten life. Then the Lotus Blossom resolved. TEPS played Seething
Song, Chromatic Sphere, Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox (empty), Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame,
Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens, Empty the Warrens. The goblins won the game three turns later.
We shuffled the LLL deck a lot more thoroughly after that, and stopped drawing everything in pairs.
We also decided to play a couple extra unsideboarded games, just to make sure we knew the decks.
After shuffling, LLL actually pulled threats. TEPS only came close in one other game. That game TEPS
suspended two Lotus Blossoms on turn one, never played or drew a land all game, and ended turn 4 with a
decent storm count and Tendrils – but totaled eighteen damage, not twenty. LLL had a Masticore and
Cursed Scroll working by then, and the combination won the game. TEPS could never do the last two points.
Sideboarding LLL was easy – the Walls of Blossoms came out and a Masticore and three Uktabi Orangutans
went in. For TEPS, Empty the Warrens went in for Sins of the Past. We debated Duress, which is good
against LD if you can cast it, but not good enough when all your lands come into play tapped. We kept
track of how often TEPS could have cast a Duress in a situation that mattered. It happened once in six
games. The cards that Duress would have replaced were always better.
TEPS had one close post-sideboard game. Once again, it managed to suspend two Lotus Blossoms on turn
2. Once again, it managed an impressive turn four, despite having zero lands, Emptying the Warrens for
twenty goblins off the Blossoms and some mana acceleration. However, this time LLL had a Masticore in
play. Masticore shot down all the goblins over a couple turns and swung for the win.
This matchup is totally one-sided. LLL advances.
Jar Grim versus PT Junk
(still in progress)
RDW2k versus Aggro Loam
(still in progress)
Academy versus Cephalid Life
I am going to keep the coverage short and sweet here. Academy is a classic broken combo deck. It
drops lots of artifacts and Tolarian Academy, then plays Mind over Matter (discard a card, untap Academy.)
Stroke of Genius provides the cards to power that combo. Just for kicks, I tried to see just how much
mana that can reasonably provide, and I got just over 300 mana. Not bad for turn 3, and it could have
been a lot more if I was willing to cast one of the three Time Spirals I was holding. The downside would
be that I might have drawn seven lands off the Spiral and mana burned to death, so I didn’t risk it.
Cephalid Life is also a combo deck — or maybe I should say a couple of combos in one deck. The
first combo is Daru Spiritualist, an en-Kor creature and either Worthy Cause or Starlit Sanctum. By
repeatedly targeting Daru Spiritualist with the En-Kor’s damage transfer, you can get the
Spiritualist’s toughness to some arbitrarily large number, then sacrifice it and gain that much
life. Game 1 Cephalid Life got this combo off, and went to 8.45 billion (that’s 8.45 thousand
million for you Brits, IIRC) life. Big deal — Academy Stroked it out the next turn anyway.
The second combo is an En-Kor and Cephalid Illusionist: repeated targeting the Illusionist can put the
Cephalid Life player’s entire library in the graveyard. At that point, Cephalid Life can Reanimate
a Sutured Ghoul, and remove enough creatures to make it huge. Dragon’s Breath gives the Ghoul
haste. In short, turn 2, play an En-Kor, turn 3, play Illusionist, mill the graveyard, Reanimate Sutured
Ghoul, attack with a 29/29 trampler.
That happened once. Academy had a double mulligan on the play. Cephalid Life played a turn 1 Aether
Vial, then Vampiric Tutor on turn 2, Aether Vialed out the creatures (one end of turn 2, one on turn 3)
and went off. Academy had had a bad draw and was tapped out with no Force of Will in hand. What it did
have was Academy, Mind over Matter, Ancient Tomb, Voltaic Key, Mox Diamond and two Mana Vaults in play,
and Stroke of Genius in hand, so it wasn’t as if Cephalid Life was going to get another turn.
Note also that Academy would have had to Force either the Aether Vial or the Vampiric Tutor here. The
creatures were put into play via Vial, not cast, and once they had milled away the library, both were
sacked to Cabal Therapy to make sure that Academy could not counter the Reanimate.
The Cephalid Life decklist in my article was imperfect. Lepern provided a much better version in the
forums. It’s in the discussion
about YW#168, and it was what we played. Not that it matters: Academy advances.
Gaea’s Might Get There versus Pandeburst
This is a classic matchup of one of the most tuned and powerful “fair” decks ever versus one
of the most tuned and powerful “unfair” decks. Remember the old platitude “Cheaters
never win, and winners never cheat”?
Yeah, right.
Here are the notes for game one. GMGT is on the play; Pandeburst has mulliganed.
GMGT: fetchland, Stomping Ground, Firebolt you, go
PB: Underground Sea, go
GMGT: Godless Shrine, Swiftblade (PB: Brainstorm EoT)
PB: Ancient Tomb
GMGT: fetch Breeding Pool, beat, Tribal Flames for 5 (PB: Intuition for 2 * Pandemonium, Saproling Burst
EoT, Burst in hand.)
PB: Gemstone Mine, Frantic Search discarding Burst, Replenish
For those that haven’t seen it, here’s the kill: Replenish puts Pandemonium and Saproling Burst into
play. You remove a counter from the Burst, which creates a 6/6 creature. Pandemonium triggers, dealing 6
to the opponent. You let that resolve, then create another creature. This one is a 5/5. Let that
Pandemonium trigger resolve to deal another 5 to your opponent. In the end, you deal 6+5+4+3+2+1 = 21 to
your opponent. Since there were two Pandemoniums in this game, this ended up doing 6+6+5 – at which point
the opponent was dead.
Why pay 14RRGG for the enchantments when you can cheat them into play via Replenish for 3W? The
cheater wins.
Game 2: (Pandeburst was on the play, because the decks alternate playing first in the two
pre-sideboard games. Neither deck mulliganed.)
PB: Gemstone Mine, go
GMGT: fetch into Stomping Ground, Kird Ape, go (PB: Brainstorm EoT)
PB: Tomb, Frantic Search discarding 2 Saproling Bursts, go
GMGT: fetch for Godless Shrine, beat, Savannah Lions, Kird Ape, go
PB: Underground Sea, Replenish, make 2 6/6 creatures, go
GMGT: play Breeding Pool tapped, Kataki, go
PB: beat with 5/5s, Kataki, Kird Ape & Lion dies blocking (killing one tree), make another tree,
go
GMGT: Boros Swiftblade, go
PB: beat with 4/4 and 3/3, double block kills Swiftblade. Make a tree. (GMGT is now at 3, facing two 3/3s
with only a Kird Ape.)
PB second main: Tundra, Demonic Consultation for Replenish, flash Force of Will and Brainstorm.
GMGT: concede
Sideboarding Pandeburst is pretty straightforward. There is really nothing much you want, except a
few Pyroblasts to counter or kill Meddling Mages. Duress is marginally useful, so we took two out and put
two Pyroblasts in. GMGT has a few more decisions, but this also looks easy. Krosan Grip, Meddling Mage
and Jotun Grunt look good, and Lightning Helix can take you above 21 (provided you take no more than one
damage from lands.) Firebolt and Sudden Shocks come out.
First post-sideboard game: GMGT is on the play in all post-sideboard games, since it lost two in the
presideboarded. Both decks mulliganed once.
GMGT: fetch, Stomp, Ape, go
PB: Underground Sea, go
GMGT: fetch, beat, Kird Ape and Lions, go (PB: Brainstorm EoT)
PB: Gemstone Mine, go
GMGT: land, beat, Grim Lavamancer, Tribal Flames for 5 (PB: Consult EoT for Frantic Search)
PB: City of Traitors, Frantic Search discarding Pandemonium and Saproling Burst, Replenish, win
The Cheater deck wins, and advances to the next round.
Counterslivers versus Psychatog
(still in progress)
Free Spell Necro versus Balancing Tings
(still in progress)
George W. Bosh versus G/B Survival
(still in progress)
I’m way over the target article length. More importantly, I have been playing every free hour of
the day: in empty conferences rooms at work during lunch hour, at stores during free gaming and between
rounds in tournaments, and both early mornings and late nights at home. I’m going to have to stop
here and send this to Craig. The rest of the first round next time.
PRJ
“one million words” on MTGO
pete {dot} jahn {a} Verizon {dot} net