This past weekend I participated in the first Jawncon in Philadelphia. The format was Two-Headed Giant Old School using Atlantic restricted list with a few modifications: Shahrazad was banned and Ankh of Mishra, The Abyss, Time Vault, and Underworld Dreams were restricted. Additionally, each player was allowed to play a Chaos Orb.
I've always enjoyed Two-Headed Giant (2HG) as a Magic format ever since it was formally introduced in 2006 or so. I like the deeper gameplay and longer games, especially in limited. I like being on a team and having more people in the game without the political shenanigans of other multiplayer formats. I also like how certain cards function much differently than they do in normal 1v1. I also had some success with the format, winning the 2HG State Championship in two different states.
I was able to convince Simon Christie from the Houston Falling Stars to once again travel to Philadelphia and be my teammate.
The Brewing Process
My first instinct was to play a control deck and a combo deck. One of the first times I remember playing 2HG was in 2006 Standard with a Mono-Blue Counterspell deck protecting the UG Early Harvest deck. For Old School, I thought the best combo would be Power Artifact / Basalt Monolith combo. I expected Fireball to be a good card in general and wanted to try to play mostly creatureless to turn off any anti-creature cards our opponents had.
Next, I started looking at cards that are increased power level in 2HG. These cards include Copper Tablet/Syphon Soul, Earthquake/Hurricane/Inferno, the restricted Underworld Dreams, and most importantly Pestilence. We looked at trying to make a WWr aggro deck with eight protection from black creatures to pair with a UB Workshop deck that would play four Pestilence along with some Cylcopean Tomb. I was worried that pro-black creatures were underpowered though and wouldn't be good against all the Moats I expected to face. Also, when you don't draw Pestilence you just had two mediocre creature decks. Our round three opponents did this best though by still playing mostly creatureless with their Pestilence and just had Mishra's Factory to keep it around at the end of the turn. We never quite got to that part in the development.
The next thing I looked at was ways to help out my partner. I envisioned a kind of artifact prison deck with Howling Mine, Relic Barrier, and Winter Orb to go with a deck with four Copy Artifact and Titania's Song for the kill. I think this configuration has more promise that I gave it credit for, as it is still mostly creatureless. Paul and Emily played some variation of this combination.
The final thing I looked at but probably not enough was the extreme control configuration. Simon wanted to play two decks where the only win condition was Timetwister and Tormod's Crypt. I think this combination of decks would have been great for the event, but the turns take so long in 2HG I was worried about running out of time before actually killing the opponent, even when it is just best-of-one.
In the end we decided to play the Control / Power Artifact configuration as nothing else seemed as strong, though we maybe came up with the actual best decks to play when we were just joking around the morning of the event (see bonus section).
Our Decks
Team Falling Stars
(sorry for the poor picture of the Power Artifact deck, I forgot to take a better one before taking it apart)
With the nature of the combo deck and the restricted cards, you quickly realize that you want all the power cards in the deck with Demonic Tutor. Besides the two restricted lands, there were just two Moxen and Balance in the UW deck, and I'm not sure that it should have had that many. We played too much anti-creature stuff and could have played fewer STP and not had the Moat or the Factories at all. Jayemdae Tome was far too slow for the format and should have been some Jalum Tome to work with the Land Tax. I don't think we got the Copy Artifact and Fellwar Stone split correct and probably should have played the maximum of each between the two. Additional countermagic like Flash Counter and Avoid Fate were some of the last cards cut.
Mirror Universe was in as a Transmute target until being cut for Earthquake at the last minute. Without Balance to tutor for we wanted access to a cheap-ish sweeper. Transmuting for Triskelion also seemed strong enough and the bad synergry with Ivory Tower and Mirror Universe was a slight concern. I really want to play Sylvan Library and Channel in the combo deck but the green mana sources were tough. Overall I'm happy with about 105 of the 120 cards we submitted, though we did miss a big card that should have been more of a factor. Given what we knew, we were about 90% of the way there.
The Event
After some bagels and coffee, Simon and I drove to the site passing by the Home Depot with the giant abandoned smokestack along the way. This also took me through the craziest signalized intersection I've ever encountered at Roosevelt Blvd and Adams St. As a traffic engineer, it was fascinating but as a driver it was terrifying. In general, the boulevard traffic situation was something new to me.
In particular, this left turn on the way back crossing four travelways is mind-melting.
The event location was nice and spacious on the inside, but not much to look at from the outside. The food was solid all day and the special cocktail for the day, the "Healing Salve", was top notch.
After a brief introduction and review of the 2HG rules including explanation of the penalty kick orb flip tiebreaker procedure, we began the tournament.
Round One - Wardens of Alcatraz
Their configuration was UW Tax Tower and Armageddon with Power Artifact and the Monoliths were in the RB deck that also had Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole I think? We won the game on turn three or four with Counterspell backup. We played again for fun and they almost locked us out of the game with Cyclopean Tomb but Chaos Orb undid that and Time Walk let me combo.
1-0
Round Two - The Birb Maidens
We were under the gun facing an early Blood Moon and Scryb Sprites plus Zephyr Falcon. We used Orb to destroy the Moon but this turned on Pendelhaven and Mishra's Factory to do more damage. We had two Ivory Towers and they were forced to use their Chaos Orb on a Land Tax. They got us down to 8 life before Simon got back up to seven cards for Library and a Copy for a third Tower. A Wrath of God the next turn bought us plenty of time, but I drew Braingeyser for seven cards and won the next turn.
2-0
Round Three - Fee Fi Fo Fuck Outta Here
This team identified one card that was probably key for deckbuilding that we just missed: Fork. They had a mostly Black deck for Pestilence and Syphon Soul and a mostly Red deck for Fork and additional burn. They used Fork to stop our first combo attempt. I believe they cast Wheel of Fortune at some point after which I attempted a Braingeyser for nine cards. They had Fork which we should have let resolve since they would only have four mana left for counter interaction. Instead, we tried to counter the Fork and after a Counterspell and Red Elemental Blast, no one drew any cards. I took a gamble with Timetwister after this. Simon failed to draw a counter off of it and my great seven card hand was Mind Twisted away. They did play the ninth land that would tie with Simon for Land Tax, so I went for Orb flip on Simon's land but missed. We should have just used Swords to Plowshares instead of the Orb and then forgot to do that. Not getting to tax meant we only gained two life from Tower and the next turn they had Pestilence plus Syphon Soul plus Fork to burn us out exactly.
2-1
Round Four - Two Dinguses
Their configuration was a mostly Green fatty deck with Elves, Birds, Erhnam, and Iff-Biff along with a Dingus Egg Armageddon deck. We were never really in trouble as the Swords to Plowshares finally did something. Eventually I combo when they were tapped out.
3-1
Round Five - Bald Bearded and Beautiful
They were 4-0 at this point and there were three teams at 3-1. A win here could at least get us in the tiebreak conversation for first. They were also on Power Artifact deck, but their support deck was less anti-creature and more anti-spell. They had Flash Counter and Glasses of Urza(!) to further support the combo. I play a turn one Wheel of Fortune and draw six lands and Demonic Tutor. Simon's hand is mostly anti-creature, so I used Tutor to find Timetwister on turn three. Turn four we decide to tap Simon's white source to play Land Tax instead of leaving up Disenchant since I had REB and Simon had Counterspell up. This backfired and we immediately lost since they had Power Artifact plus Fireball and Flash Counter plus Mana Drain for our answers.
3-2
So in the end, one of the other Power Artifact configurations won the event at 5-0. The team with four Fork ended up at 4-1 for second place. Simon and I had the best breakers of the 3-2 so we got third place. Here is a photo of us in the same pose as the trophy card Clone:
Overall Impressions
Two-Headed Giant was a fun format to build decks for, but the gameplay was a bit lacking. I don't think that can really be fixed by banning or restricting any of the combo cards as the control cards that did nothing all day in Simon's deck would still be oppressing other strategies. I think the best way to do some 2HG in the future would be to do some kind of Singleton. There are enough ways to synergize with your partner in deckbuilding while still probably requiring normal Magic play patterns.
The event was run extremely well and props to the Philly Old School group for putting it on. I will continue to attend events they run as long as I'm in the area.
Props:
2HG just for being a cool thing
Simon for travelling all the way from Houston to be my other head
Philly Old School for running the event
the "Healings Salve"
the team with all the Forks - this card is so good in 2HG
Simon and Will for completing this three-way Demonic Tutor trade
Slops:
Me for making some questionable plays and questionable deck building decisions
Weird Philly intersectionsMe for missing my sister-in-laws 40th birthday party to play silly card game
Bonus Section
We came up with this Saturday morning trying to decide what Dom and Andy would be playing. It might actually be good:
Deck A:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Sword of the Ages
52 Giant Creatures
Deck B:
4 Eureka
4 All Hallow's Eve
4 Animate Dead
4 Concordant Crossroads
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Chaos Orb
1 Regrowth
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 City of Brass
1 Forest
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