I still haven’t finished playing matches for the Ultimate Extended Tournament. I’ve been goofing off. Instead, this week I’m trying something new. I’ll take a deck archetype, build my best version on MTGO, then play against the other major archetypes. Where possible, the matches will be in PEs. If not there, in Eight Man single elimination events – StarCityGames.com readers deserve nothing but the best competitors MTGO can offer.
As opponents, at least. On my side of the virtual table is still, let’s face it, me.
Today I’m running a Red/Green deck. I have built variations on this theme – but today I’m running a deck closely based on the one that Katsuhiro Ide rode to the Top 8 of Grand Prix: Kyoto a month ago. Here’s his list, followed by my modifications. For the most part, my modifications were because I simply didn’t have the cards. For example, I only own one Serrated Arrows and two Call of the Herds.
Creatures (23)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Kird Ape
- 2 Burning-Tree Shaman
- 4 Giant Solifuge
- 4 Scab-Clan Mauler
- 2 Scorched Rusalka
- 3 Tin Street Hooligan
Lands (10)
Spells (27)
Sideboard
My Modifications: I took one maindeck and the sideboard Call of the Herds, and replaced the maindeck one with another Burning-Tree Shaman. I removed the Arrows, Anthem, and Call, because I don’t have enough. I replaced them with another Sulfur Elemental and two Rumbling Slums. The Slums are questionable, but I wanted another big threat. I may try Timbermare in that slot, but the Slums work quite well.
Basically, Ide’s R/G deck is Boros, in concept, replacing White with Green for better creatures. It’s designed to smash quickly, then finish with burn. It is not a terribly difficult deck to play. You play aggressively, mulligan any hand that does not have enough action, and try to deal twenty damage as fast as you possible can.
One advantage of this deck is that it is fast – and its games are over fast. I’m writing this part while waiting for the finals of an eight man. I may have some time to wait: Round 2 ends in 43 minutes – and I have been writing for eight minutes already.
No chance of doing a PE today. I have conflicts. I joined an eight-man single elimination event. I have to admit that this was my first Constructed eight-man ever. I have avoided playing single elimination Constructed events, since I have not had the cards for a truly competitive deck. I don’t mind PEs as much: in those I will get to play more than two games, no matter how marginal my deck or draws. However, to get good matchups for this series, I have to pit the deck against the best available competition. That means I have to bite the bullet and play in either PEs or eight-man queues, and an eight-man is what I have time for today.
Time to recap some matchups:
Versus Boros
I don’t know exactly what was in his list, but it looked pretty standard. He had a few unexpected cards. Here’s my reconstruction:
4 Soltari Priest
4 Icatian Javelineer
4 Knight of the Holy Nimbus
4 Boros Swiftblade
? Stonecloaker
? Savannah Lions
4 Lightning Helix
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Rift Bolt.
? Char
Sacred Foundry
Boros Garrison
Plains
Mountains
The biggest problem when facing Boros is the Soltari Priests. You cannot block them, and you cannot burn them out. In game 1, a Priest smashed me in the face until I got to six life. Then they were replaced by Stonecloaker, and I died to a Rift Bolt.
Ide’s original sideboard had two copies of Serrated Arrows, which is a perfect answer to Priests, but one I don’t yet own. The other answer is Sulfur Elemental, which turns Soltari Priests into very dead 3/0s. I brought in four of those in for one of the Stonewood Invocations, a Burning-Tree Shaman, and two Tin Street Hooligans.
I didn’t see any of them. I died on turn 10 to a pair of Soltari Priests and an Icatian Javelineer. It didn’t help that he had drawn a couple Honorable Passages, which meant my burn spells kept hitting me in the face.
I generally haven’t had problems with this matchup in the tourney practice room, but I lost this one. My first paid-for eight-man online. Four TIX. Two games. Grr.
Since I don’t learn from my mistakes, I immediately entered another one.
Versus U/W/R Lightning Angel / Blink Riders
My first opponent in the second round was playing some sort of hybrid between Blink Riders (which features cards like Avalanche Riders and Momentary Blink) and a more classic Lightning Angel control. He even had a Stone Rain in the deck – I have no idea why. In general, his build was not bad, but it was not all that tightly focused. I ran him down easily game 1.
Against the three-color decks, you want to side in Blood Moon. It is amazing, in that it shuts down Wrath almost for certain and slows the control decks down a ton. You side out green cards, like Burning-Tree Shaman, Call of the Herd, and Stonewood Invocation, because you are less likely to have Green mana available once Blood Moon resolves. Remember, under a bloody moon, Karplusan Forests and Stomping Grounds just produce Red mana.
In this particular matchup, I took great care to kill his Morphs immediately. The morphs all turned out to be Akroma, Angel of Fury – the Red Akroma. She’s easy to kill while Morphed, harder once face up.
In any case, Blood Moon slowed him down a bit – enough that I had soon won my first match in single elimination.
Go me!
Generally, this matchup is not too bad. Blood Moons come in, as do Sulfur Elementals if the opponent has a lot of counters. (Sulfur Elemental have flash and split second, so they can’t be countered.) Just keep racing – you can outrun almost anything. In one game in the tournament practice room, my opponent Wrathed away the board, leaving us both at about twenty. I dropped a couple creatures. He dropped Akroma – the White one. I ripped Giant Solifuge and just kept swinging with everything. Akroma ate creatures, and my life total, but I dealt twenty to him and he only dealt 18 to me.
So far, I have tended to win far more than I lose against this archetype. Just remember, Char kills Lightning Angels, Rift Bolt kills Court Hussars and Seal of Fire is worth keeping until you can kill the opponent – otherwise a pair of Seals can also nail a Lightning Angel. Other than that, don’t waste too much time playing around Mana Leak and Remand – but if your opponent is sitting back on 1U, and you are short on mana, consider suspending a Rift Bolt or casting less valuable test spells. It’s not a big deal, though – most U/W/R decks run a couple Remands at best. Of course, that is not universally true.
Versus U/B Control
Another opponent, another archetype: this idea was working well.
My opponent opened with Watery Grave and Dreadship Reef. This means that he is playing some form of Dralnu de Louvre. (As you probably know, the deck’s name comes from a defining card Dralnu, Lich Lord and the venue where it was first played – the Louvre museum in Paris, at Worlds.) Generally, Dralnu decks run lots of counters, some instant speed removal and Mystical Teachings. Mystical Teachings can get counters, removal, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and – with Teferi in play – other creatures. Those other creatures are usually Draining Whelk and Skeletal Vampire. Dralnu decks also generally have Deserts, but you will have either won or lost long before they bother you. A single Desert can only kill the Elves, Hooligans and Rusalkas – everything else generally has a three toughness or better.
The game plan, whenever possible, is to open with a one drop or Seal of Fire. On turn 2, you do some damage, then drop a big Mauler. Turn 3 you play something expendable, like Call of the Herd or Burning-Tree Shaman. Turn 4 you play Seal of Fire, or sit back on burn. Don’t play more creatures; you are waiting for your opponent to play Damnation to sweep the board. You want to keep just enough pressure up to force the Damnation, but avoid overextending. You want to make sure you can recover – and losing four creatures to Damnation makes it far too likely that your opponent will have more counterspells than you have threats afterwards.
Just watch out for Persecute.
Sideboarding is simple. Most decks have a limited number of Islands, and many have no basic Swamps at all. Blood Moon can give them serious problems. Next, bring in the uncounterable Sulfur Elementals. Take out the Tin Street Hooligans, because most builds do not run Signets, the Burning-Tree Shamans and the Stonewood Invocations (since the odds of resolving those is pretty low.) The Dralnu deck will probably bring in Bottle Gnomes, and possibly another Persecute.
I haven’t had much trouble with this opponent in practice, and in my second eight-man ever, I 2-0ed him quickly.
Note: people also play a variant of the U/B control deck that includes the Vesuvan Shapeshifter and Brine Elemental combo. The deck is giving up some counters and control elements to fit in this combo, so it actually makes the deck easier to beat. Just make sure you kill all Morphs immediately – preferably when the opponent does not have the mana to unmorph the creature.
Versus Dragonstorm
For the finals, I faced a Dragonstorm deck. He demonstrated the deck quite neatly. He suspended a Lotus Bloom turn 1, played a couple Telling Times, then went off turn 4: Seething Song, Seething Song, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Dragonstorm – at which point I conceded. I had mulliganed into a pair of Tin Street Hooligans and a Char, and never drew any more pressure.
Here’s what I think he was playing.
4 Dragonstorm
4 Telling Time
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Remand
? Gigadrowse
4 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Hunted Dragon
1 Grozoth
Shivan Reef
Steam Vents
Mountain
Island
Not a lot of sideboarding here. I took out Stonewood Invocations for Sulfur Elementals, because Stonewood looked like a Lava Axe in this matchup. Lava Axe is slow – too slow. This is all about racing, because there is really nothing else you can do.
I ran my race just fine – and won four packs. My first ever first in a Standard eight-man.
Go me some more!
Critical play in this matchup: game 2, turn 1. My hand was Kird Ape, Scab-Clan Mauler, Rift Bolt, Karplusan Forest, Pendelhaven, Mountain. People are so used to playing Kird Ape turn 1, they forget to suspend Rift Bolt. Suspending the Bolt means it hits on turn 2, which does bloodlust the Maulers. Seals of Fire work the same way. More importantly, Gigadrowse cannot stop the damage from a Rift Bolt or Seal, but it can certainly stop a Kird Ape – and that stall, and the resulting lack of counters on the Mauler – will probably be game.
I have done pretty well against Dragonstorm decks – except for one that packed both Remand and Mana Leak, and drew them all early. That version managed to limit my pressure, and he was still at a comfortable ten life or so when he went off games one and three – but that was in practice, so it doesn’t really count.
Drafting the Winnings
I won four packs. Instead of selling them, I decided to enter a 4-3-2-2 draft, and see if I could open some of the cards I still need (like a third Call of the Herd, or components for Dragonstorm, etc.)
I opened a Bogardan Hellkite – nothing for the R/G deck, but nothing to sneer at, either. My second pick was Errant Ephemeron – at which point Blue dried up. Third pick Strangling Soot was my last playable Black card. My fourth pick was Durkwood Baloth. I wound up with a very fast, solid R/G deck, which seemed appropriate for this article. I had a very fast curve, with a bunch of two drops, some good removal and a couple Coal Stokers and Giant Dustwasps at the top of the mana curve.
I won game 1 easily. Game 2 I mulliganed to five to avoid keeping hands with Red cards and Forest hands, and my five was the same. I never saw a Mountain all game. Game 3 I kept a four land hand, and then drew seven straight lands.
Go me. Boo.
The cards I wound up with are worth less than 6 tix – the cost of the eight-man (4 tix) plus the cost of the draft (3 of the winnings packs and 2 more tix.) Sub-optimal.
Versus Mono-Black Rack
I went back to the eight-man standard queue. I was soon typing “hi, gl, have fun” to another opponent. This time my opponent was playing Mono-Black Rack. Yay – another archetype. Here’s my reconstruction of what he was playing.
4 Dark Confidant
4 Plagued Rusalka
4 Ravenous Rats
4 The Rack
4 Cry of Contrition
4 Stupor
4 Funeral Charm
4 Smallpox
? Cruel Edict
? Extirpate
Game 1 he may have been a bit mana screwed early, with only a pair of Swamps and a Ghost Quarter. He played out a Plagued Rusalka and Dark Confidant, while stripping my hand with Cry of Contrition. His Dark Confidant gave him a couple Racks, but I was holding lands. By the time he finally stripped the lands away with Stupor, I had lethal damage on the table.
This illustrates the main problem with Mono-Black Rack: it does not have a lot of finishers. The Rack is fine if you can empty the opponent’s hand, but not that good if the opponent can hang onto lands. Actually, Mono-Black Rack is much better against control decks, like Dralnu, or Dragonstorm, which have more problem being held to too few lands, and having an empty hand. R/G Beats can run quite well on three lands, and do everything it wants on four mana sources.
Sideboarding is fairly simple. Stonewood Invocations come out, because you are quite likely to lose them to discard or have no creatures in play to use them on. Sulfur Elementals come in, because they can be cast either in response to a discard spell, or at end of turn to dodge – for a turn at least – sorcery speed removal spells, like Cruel Edict and Smallpox. In the event, they worked: I cast one Char in response to a Funeral Charm after my draw, and a Sulfur Elemental in response to Stupor.
Game 2 illustrated both the power and problems of the Rack deck. He opened, with Swamp, Rusalka. I opened with Stomping Grounds, Red Rusalka. His turn 2 was Swamp, Cry of Contrition, Cry of Contrition – both haunting his Rusalka. I played a second Stomping Ground, tapped. My hand was Char, Tin Street Hooligan and lands. I knew he would blow his Rusalka on his turn, to kill my Rusalka, and to trigger the Haunting Cries. Playing the Tin Street would just let him kill it, while it would also tap me out so I could not respond with my Rusalka.
This may have been correct, but he played a third Cry of Contrition – taking one-fourth of my hand away, then beat and sacrificed the Rusalka to target my Rusalka and to trigger the three haunting Cries. So, at the end of his turn 3, I had two Stomping Grounds in play, nothing else, and nothing in hand. He had several cards in hand, but no Rack. In the end, I managed to draw and deploy enough threats to kill him before he could kill me. Eventually he did draw a Rack, but Rack only does three points per turn if your hand is completely empty – and that is very slow indeed.
Versus U/G Pickles Tron
The next match began easily enough. My opponent mulliganed to five, then played nothing but two Urza’s Towers. I ran him over. Since I knew nothing except that he was playing Tron, I brought in the Blood Moons. They mana screwed him again in the next game. On to the finals.
4 Remand
? Repeal
? Chord of Calling
? Thelonite Hermit
? Wall of Roots
? Willbender
? Silklash Spider
? Brine Elemental
? Vesuvan Shapeshifter
4 Breeding Pool
4 Yavimaya Coast
? Simic Growth Chamber
UrzaTron
My opponent offered a split. (Note: the Constructed eight-man split is bugged: if you ID, you both get 2 packs. The generally accepted alternative is that one player concedes, and the other ships him with a pack and a ticket.) I declined, explaining that I was writing an article. (I doubt he believed me.)
We played it out.
He was also with Pickles Tron, but he had a better draw. I opened with Kird Ape, Mauler, etc. He developed a bit more slowly, dropping a few morphs (which I killed) but eventually got enough mana to Chord of Calling for a Silklash Spider that stopped my Mauler. That tapped him out, so I was able to drop the Kird Ape he had bounced earlier and suspend a Rift Bolt. Since he was at five life with lethal on the table, he conceded.
I sided in the Blood Moons (Tron, after all) and a few Sulfur Elementals – and a Rumbling Slum. Slum was large enough to smash through Walls of Roots. He sided in Spike Feeders.
Game 2 I had the turn 1 elf, turn 2 Blood Moon start. Unfortunately, he had a Wall of Roots, and played three successive Signets. I was actually more color screwed than he was. The game seesawed, but I got Rumbling Slum down and it started eroding his already-very-low life total. I also had a Burning Tree Shaman in play, so his gaining life off the Spike Feeder was less effective than usual. I also got a Scorched Rusalka into play, so I could throw creatures at him. He fluctuated between five and two life for a few turns, then I drew a Rift Bolt for the win.
Okay, I have now played this deck in three eight-man tournaments, and won two of them. I dropped a total of three games. I have won eight packs.
Obv, I am the greatest thing since Kai. I should change my name.
I go to draft with the winnings.
I open Stonebrow and go G/R again, splashing the two foil Islands I got 13th and 14th picks for Intet. I have the nifty double Primal Forcemage, triple Uktabi Drake combo. I have Rift Bolt and plenty of copies of the Coal Stoker / Grapeshot combo, and an Empty the Warrens if I want to vary the pattern. I even have a Meteor if my opponent has a fattie, and a Weatherseed Treefolk if I feel nostalgic (I used to play them back in Urza’s block.)
Maybe I should do a daily draft series. (My ego was large and well fed at this point.)
My opponent has Errant Doomsayers, and knows enough to tap my Drakes with the Forcemage trigger on the stack. He also has Amrou Scouts and recruits a bunch of little Rebels. This continues until about turn 15. He has two Scouts, and two Saltfield Recluses, and a Zealot, and so forth. I am holding a pair of Coal Stokers, a Might of Old Krosa and am just waiting for a Grapeshot to smash him. I don’t draw Grapeshot. He does draw Tromp the Domains.
Game 2 is similar, but now I cannot draw a Mountain. I finally get one – the turn after he played Gauntlet of Power to make all his White x/1s into x/2s. I cast Coal Stoker, then suspend Rift Bolt and Meteor, and drop a Wall. I’m at 12. He swings with an unblockable 3/3 Amrou Seekers and a Shade of Trokair. I check my life total, count his Plains (four) and don’t block.
Gauntlet of Power means 4 plains = WWWWWWWW = I’m dead.
I’m 1-4 in games in the TS 4-3-2-2 drafts.
Maybe I shouldn’t change my name.
Next week, I should have more of the Ultimate Extended Tournament. Round 1 is almost done – I just have to find someone both dumb enough and skilled enough to play Trix versus Twiddle Desire and Benzo versus Belcher Severance.
PRJ
“one million words” on MTGO
pete {dot} jahn {at} Verizon {dot} net