RPTQ Testing

Here I'm going to talk a bit about the process I used for testing for the RPTQ. I chose to do my testing almost entirely on MTG Arena for this tournament. I previously used Arena for testing for GP Denver back in October, but this would be my first foray into serious constructed testing. Given the recent announcements about the future of Arena, it seems like a good time to continue my dive in. It was much easier to obtain the cards on Arena than on MTGO, even with a Mana Traders account. I saved several hours over the month or so by avoiding the clunky MTGO trading interface, and who knows how much time by the increased game speed.

The biggest drawback was likely quality of opponent. The Twitter account MTGArena decks retweets anyone who shares lists that get five wins in a Traditional Constructed event. From my experience, these events are incredibly soft. I think I was 20-3 at some point with Merfolk, and as much as I'm hoping that means I broke the format (see last post), I'll be realistic and say it's probably not the case. Sideboarding helped tremendously against the weaker players where a strategy they might not be prepared for will not only give you an advantage, but outright win you the game.

The Deck

I've had Merfolk built as a casual Arena reward chasing deck since I first installed the software. There are lots of different ways to build it. You can focus on going wide with Deeproot Waters. You can play lots of +1+1 counters like Merfolk Branchwalker, Jadelight Ranger, Deeproot Elite, and Hadana's Climb. The version that had the most fun was a Wizard heavy version with Wizard's Retort supported by Silvergil Adept and Merfolk Trickster (both auto-includes) and Watertrap Weaver. As RNA release approached, I knew I would get Breeding Pool to improve the manabase, but I wasn't hopeful for much more. 

Unclaimed Territory is one of the very few lands in standard that draws you to play it. There are no spell lands besides Arch of Orazca that don't start out as some other permanent type. My traditional strategy of "play the best lands" really means you either play some gate concoction, a tribal deck with Territory, or some Arch control or midrange deck.

The New Cards

Then I saw the spoiler for Benthic Biomancer. This card is legit. It's actually played out better than I thought after initially reading it. I think it will be a real contender in Modern. And it's a Wizard. So my first brew took my old Wizard list and added Breeding Pool and Biomancer. The deck was solid, but unspectacular. I was running out of gas a bit more than I liked, likely due to trying 23 lands since I figured I had more looting available. I was still winning matches and events (mainly thanks to 4x Sleep in the sideboard), but it didn't feel like anything special.

I then saw a few lists pop up with Incubation / Incongruity. I had considered this breifly, but never actually tried it. I also switched Mist-Cloak Herald for Kumena's Speaker when the Herald wasn't doing enough damage on its own. The results felt incredible immediately. I was killing opponents much quicker thanks to the added damage boost of Speaker, and I had Kumena himself more often thanks to Incubation. The 1cc sorcery filled out the curve nicely, which finally lead me to cut Deeproot Elite entirely (this card is pretty bad as a turn two play on the draw, and if you aren't casting it on turn two what is the point really?)

I quickly settled on a core set of creatures supported by Incubation and then a few select spells. It almost always included two maindeck copies of Sleep with two more in the sideboard. The ability to effectively double your teams damage for four mana and go directly to the opponent's face means there is almost no race you are out of.

The Sideboard

You get 8+ counterspells along with several flash creatures to let you play a traditional "fish" game against combo and control decks. You have Sleep to handle other creature decks. Transmogrifying Wand was very impressive against Drakes. I wanted a repeatable card advantage source beyond Kumena for grindier matchups. At first I had Jace, Cunning Castaway (and his loyal companion, Jace's Sentinel for a while too! Thankfully they both near unplayable and I didn't have to track down the mythic 2cc 1/3). Jace had his moments, but was very inconsistent. Eventually someone suggested Karn he performed his role perfectly. He's also castable even with three or more Unclaimed Territory in play.

The Matchups

I was winning everything. Every event I'd get 5 wins, many times going undefeated. It was likely a multitude of factors, but eventually I realized something strange. I never faced Mono Red on MTG Arena. This is likely because the MonoRed players were stickly primarily to the Ladder with best of one matches, something I had no interest in during my preparation. Here is a basic synopsis of matchups besides monored:

Green Dudes, etc - they can't beat Sleep, they have a hard time answering Kumena

White Dudes, etc - still can't beat Sleep, still difficulty answering Kumena

Drakes - if you can counter / answer their threats, you have all the time in the world. Alternatively use counters to protect your team and swarm their lone creature

Control - Play a dude or two, counter their responses, repeat until they die.

Combo - like Control 

Red - ????

I finally played some focused testing vs Red. I started off by losing the first nine games before stealing a win in the tenth. Goblin Chainwhirler is a messed up card. So Red is bad, my main strategy is to dodge, hope for mana screw, or try to play the anti-control plan against them. 

Play What You Want

I'm hoping for the best. I'll play this at the SCG Open next weekend regardless of my finish at the RPTQ because it is that much fun.