Guest Blog: Examining Best of One

A few weeks ago, I mentioned some thoughts I had about single game matches in MTG Arena. Since then, WotC has revamped the rewards for many of the best of one modes leading to some debate about the nature of the game. After some breakdown in Twitter discourse, I invited my good friend José Pineda to write his perspective for a guest blog post. I had planned on doing some editing, but I ran out of time. I'll have my follow up posted later this week.

The Best Best Of

I have no idea how I heard about Magic: The Gathering. I am fairly certain that it was an ad of some sort because the first time I walked into a game shop to buy MTG products I had to find the store on my own, and I went alone, and I needed the guy at the register to help me. I had no friends that played. I made two decks to play with my then girlfriend. She and I played chess and scrabble regularly so I figured another game would be fun. Little did I know that I stumbled onto the most interesting game I have ever come across. Aside from many other issues, she and I would eventually break up, in part, due to my obsession with MTG. It did not take long for me to get the fever and have the drive to play magic at the highest competitive level I could muster. This is how I met Ty. I joined a message board for Texas magic players (RIP TMZ you were the worst). Ty and I would first have a friendship on TMZ and later we'd chat on Magic Online, so it feels quite appropriate that we would be here talking about another online magic offering: MTG Arena. Specifically, the current focus on single game matches over best of three matches. I like taking the scenic route when I am making a point so strap in.

In my heyday I played magic about 15-20 hours a week. I would test constructed with my team on Magic Workstation (the software that basically pirated MTG) and I would do in person drafts and testing every weekend on both Friday nights and Saturdays. I was 100% in the semi-pro camp of magic players. In those days it was quite irritating to have the DCI or Wizards make changes to the game that, in the view of most competitive magic players, was "dumbing down" the game. Every time the DCI changed a rule or banned a card or that time Wizards said they didn't want combos that could win prior to turn 4 or when pro tour coverage during Lorwyn talked so much about how the new focus on good creatures makes Pro magic look like kitchen table magic, and many other times I was with the hoard decrying "the end of magic!" Magic grinders have declared the death of magic so often that I am pretty sure we're in a Halloween film.

These days my life has changed. I no longer can devote 15-20 hours to this game I still very much love. I work longer hours, I have a wife, we have a daughter and being able to carve out 1 or 2 hours a day or even just finding any random 1-2 hours I have nothing going on is pretty difficult. My time as a competitive magic player is pretty much over. Then I heard about MTG Arena. It was supposed to use the free to play but buy extra stuff if you want it model. I personally really like this model of gaming. I am grinder and always have been so ya, I will grind out the free mode with pleasure. The issue with grinding like this is finding the time to do it, but MTG Arena has solved this problem for me by having single game matches that provide prize support and thus support for a grinder with little time such as myself. More often then not when I play MTG Arena it is literally one game at a time. My playing currently looks like this:

I might have 30 extra mins to spare before work. Play Arena
Take a coffee break for 20 min. Play an arena match
Go to lunch for an hour: Play an arena match (maybe a best of three if I am feeling it, but more likely best of ones so I can grind out more prizes in the same about of time)
Waiting for my wife not sure how long it will be: Join a draft. PAUSE THE DRAFT when my wife is back and ready for the whatever. Finish the draft later.

This is all while MTG Arena is still only on PC. If/When MTG Arena is a phone app I suspect I will play even more. Waiting in line? Start a draft! Taking the 20-30 min train ride to a soccer match, play a match. Bored at Jury duty but not sure exactly how long it will be? Play single game matches because they are so quick!

The time commitment of best of three matches is by far the biggest deterrent for me to play. I gave you all my personal history and experience specifically to demonstrate that I do love best of three magic. I am a competitive grinder at heart even if life isn't allowing me to commit to that right now. I like deck design the most of magic and sideboards are one of the most challenging part of deck design so I do truly love best of three magic. I miss going to GPs and grinding the PTQ scene (ya I have literally never played an RPTQ because I simply cannot commit the time to play a qualifier that does nothing but give me an invite to ANOTHER QUALIFIER! God the DCI really killed magic with that change...).

Best of one matches with a decent prize support are tailored made for me. They are also better for the casual player. Other than reducing the time commitment single game matches also reduce the number of cards needed to win stuff. When I first started playing Arena I looked up decks to see which ones would be easiest to assemble using my wild cards and small collection. I could not build a single 75 card deck. Not one. I could build a 60 card deck though. It is a real bummer for a semi-grinder to have to spend wildcards are some random SB cards that I use in one matchup. When I realized I couldn't build the SB for my deck I thought I was stuck until I earned more wilds. But then I realized that I could play constructed in a best of one format and suddenly I am grinding for gold so I can draft to earn gems and earn wilds and buy more packs etc. I can do all of this in small increments of time.

I remember any time I felt like drafting in the way way back days I would have to wait until the weekend or call up a bunch of folks and try to make a team draft happen. Then MTGO made it so that I could draft whenever, but I had to have at least 3-4 hours free in case I played all three rounds. The worst was if I lose in round 1 after like an hour and a half. I now have to find something else do to for the other 1.5 hours because joining another draft is not an option. Then draft leagues became a thing and suddenly I could draft and then play games when I had the chance. Again though I definitely need 45ish min free to complete the draft portion. Then if I wanted to play a match I had to be sure I had 50-60 minutes in case the match went long (I am a slow player so it always goes long).

Now? Now I have Arena. I can instantly start a draft whenever I want and pause it if I have to, and not having to wait for other players makes the draft go so fast. On the opposite side of this, I love being able to take as long as I want to make a pick. It is a great way for someone very familiar with magic, but not familiar with a set to learn the cards while drafting. I literally read and reread cards every pick until I have an understanding of the pool. Once the draft is done all I need to do is find 15-20 min to run a single game. Often the games are less than 15 min. It's freaking great!

From my perspective, there is a place for best of three competitive magic. If ever my life affords me the time to play competitively again I will certainly look for best of three magic. It is far superior to best of one with regard to skills testing. It takes away some of the variance and allows the skillful deck builder to improve their winning percentage by giving them sideboard games to tweak their build and also allows the more skillful player to take advantage of knowing what they are against. There is no doubt that best of three is the better format to determine who is the king of all these nerds. The thing is not everyone wants to be the king of the nerds, and even some that do (like me) simply don't have the time to do that. For people like me or other casual types, best of one is perfect.

This whole blog post was brought about when Ty and I discussed the stat recently released by the developers: 97% of games played on MTG arena are best of one matches. Ty talked about how the app design encourages best of one play. I definitely agree with this notion. The question at hand though is how much of an impact is app design making? It is certainly much easier to find best of one matches. It's the default offering after all. I can easily concede that the design has an impact. The thing is those that prefer best of three either a) are a small percentage or b) of those that prefer best of three a big portion of them don't prefer it enough to take make even the smallest of efforts to find best of three. That is pretty clear in the data. It becomes even more clear when you realize that the stat is talking about *games*. This means for any bests of three match the stats count at least two games. To have an even game count those playing best of one need to play twice as many *matches* as those playing best of three because again each best of three counts as two games at least. What this says to me is that the number of players satisfied with best of one is far greater than the number of player dissatisfied. In our discussion, Ty argued that since best of one players likely don't have a preference Arena designers should listen to the best of three players because they do have a preference and are expressing that preference. This is actually a common misconception about how customer satisfaction works. Having worked in customer service management for several years now it has become apparent to me that those that are having their preferences met by a company do not do anything to say thank you to that company or pressure them to maintain the status quo. They just keep using the products as always without comment. Those that are dissatisfied, however, are always very vocal. If companies guide themselves by their complaints they will certainly fail because complaints will never stop no matter what you do. It is the reason that "you can't please everybody" is a well known concept. It is important then that companies guide themselves by more than their complaints. In this case, I think Arena is making a smart business decision. They see the data that shows their user base is satisfied with their offering so they are just going to keep on trucking even in the face of criticism. If their user base begins to decrease then I am sure they will review comments to try to figure out why, but for now, they seem to be doing what they think will keep them in business. They aren't non-profit or a charity after all. They are a business and if we want to keep getting new cards and services from Wizard's of the coast then I think it is important to trust their business decisions. Definitely keep voicing your concerns because it will possibly guide them (in fact they decided not to change prize structure after the backlash), but don't expect that your comments alone will drive their decision making. Magic has existed for a quarter century not just as a game, but as a business. Lasting even a decade as business is hard. I mean who is still playing VS System? Is anyone still slanging Star Wars CCG cards? It seems to me Wizard's and Hasbro are interested in keeping their game alive. Part of that is providing offerings that best fit their users' needs.

I think it was really interesting to get that stat. I wish they offered more. It would be super interesting if they released all their data so players could comb throw it looking for things that interest them. We could, for example, look into the match choices of players after they have acquired all new player experience decks. I suspect a significant portion of the 97% comes from new players trying to accomplish the quests to get new decks. This I assume could possibly reduce that 97% figure and give a more accurate picture of what is happening. I would also be interested in looking for anyone that played at least one best of three match. Of that group, I would want to know the percentage of best of one play versus best of three play. Basically, I would want to answer the question "of those that are aware of best of three how often do they choose each format." We could even go deeper and review those that played constructed best of three. Constructed best of three was the hardest to find (though I don't think it was that hard). I would be interested in knowing what percentage of each format did any player that played best of three in constructed plays. I suspect that even those that found best of three still play best of one more often.

I feel that those specific reviews of the data would help us determine how much players care about best of three matches. Without that data analysis, it is hard to truly understand why that 97% figure exists. That said 97% is incredibly high, and with only that I figure would also feel pretty confident in supporting any format with that kind of track record.

I have no idea what Ty will say about this topic, but I am certain I will agree with much it. Best of three is the superior skills testing format. It may also be the more fun format, though honestly, I enjoy both them about the same. If I were deck designing more then maybe I would want to think about sideboards. What I am also certain of is that Wizard's decision to focus on best of one seems reasonable given the data they decided to share. Even in the face of the obvious design decisions that could inflate that stat, it still to me seems like a stat that is pretty hard to ignore. I personally have a great use for best of one. I am quite grateful for it, and I suspect I am not unique in this regard. I very literally cannot play magic otherwise.

Thanks for reading my first foray into blogging about MTG. I hope it was as interesting to read as it was to write.
-José



P.S. Ya I love reading my own writing or hearing myself talk. As a deck designer, I also like how best of one changes the deck design. Combo decks that have silver bullet weaknesses suddenly are more appealing. Often silver bullets are SB cards with a singular focus. Your opponents can either play those singular focus cards in the main and weaken themselves against everyone else, or just try to dodge your combo. Decks that rely on graveyards comes to mind and that UR phoenix deck is the first to come to mind of active decks in standard. That deck is not unbeatable without hate cards but it is tough. That said, I cannot see how it has a chance at all in games 2 and 3 against decks with some semblance of a game one plan and also graveyard hate in their SBs. To me, UR phoenix decks are simply unplayable in best of three, but much more appealing in best of one. I like that this quirk exists.

RPTQ Report

(See preparation here, here, and here)

The first thing to talk about is not playing Path to Exile.

In the testing I had done, it was becoming more and more uncommon that drawing a single Path wasn't as good as it used to be. This is a fundamentally different deck than GW Value Town, and you don't really have much interest in the game going long. Many games you have to just start attacking and hoping your opponent can't kill you. The decks where you absolutely need Path to beat just weren't common (Devoted Druid and Infect). Reflector Mage did a much better job at buying the time while still being a reasonable threat and a hit off Collected Company.

The second card to talk about is, once again, Aether Vial. There is a weird tension where Vial wants you to play more two drops, but cards like Rattlechains and Remorseful Cleric just weren't very good. However, once you cut Aether Vial you really want to play Rattlechains to give back the added playability on your opponent's turn. Playing Reflector Mage means you want some additional mana acceleration if possible (likely Birds of Paradise). That lead me to trying out the following list:

This was a modification of a brew I had with 4x Lingering Souls instead of the Reflector Mages. Lingering Souls is a powerful card but completely unnecessary. The Birds of Paradise made casting Collected Company easier. However, the biggest takeaway was how great Gavony Township was. This card was winning mirrors, setting up very hard to deal with board states against control, and letting Supreme Phantom block a Arclight Phoenix without any worries.

In the end, Collin and I decided that Vial was too important in the mirrors to cut entirely, but we were on board with Township and Reflector Mage. The list we played at the RPTQ looked like this:

The Deck

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Mausaleum Wanderer

2 Rattlechains

3 Selfless Spirit

4 Supreme Phantom

4 Drogskol Captain

4 Spell Queller

2 Phantasmal Image

3 Reflector Mage

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Kira, Great Glass-spinner

4 Collected Company

3 Aether vial 

2 Horizon Canopy

1 Gavony Township

4 Botanical Sanctum

2 Misty Rainforest

4 Flooded Strand

1 Cavern of Souls

2 Hallowed Fountain

1 Temple Garden

1 Breeding Pool

1 Island

1 Plains

1 Forest

Sideboard

2 Damping Sphere

4 Rest in Peace

4 Stony Silence

3 Unified Will

2 Knight of Autumn

I convinced Collin to play the Kira over the 4th Reflector Mage, and he convinced me to not play a Path over the one Birds of Paradise. Both cards were probably mistakes and should be 4th Mage and 4th Aether Vial. The 3rd Canopy was cut for the Cavern to help with Township since you are actually interested in getting to five mana now. The sideboard is the way it is because there just aren't very many cards you want to bring in or cut against a large portion of the metagame, and the times you do bring in cards you want them to be the best ones.

The Games

I went 1-2 drop. Collin was 4-0 but ended up 5-2 after losing round five and six. I did have some interesting spots in my three matches I'd like to share.

Round 1 against UW control:

Game 1 I mulligan to six on the draw and keep fetchland, Noble, Noble, 3x Company. With the scry of land on top this hand easily got there for the win. 

Game 2 I develop slowish but he doesn't have any planeswalkers and I'm able to hold up Unified Will pretty much the whole game. I end up attacking him down to 6 life but before damage he casts Settle the Wreckage. I have six mana and three cards in hand: Spell Queller, Unified Will, and Collected Company. I use my Aether Vial to put in Queller and counter the Settle. He's now at 5 life. On his turn he casts Supreme Verdict with three untapped mana. I have 43 cards left in my library and 8 of them will answer the Verdict if I hit off Collected Company. This is 71% to work. However, I could wait and just Company after Verdict to redevelop. This line is very bad against a Dispel because my Unified Will will no longer be available. Because of this, I decide to fire off the CoCo. He has the Dispel which I counter with Mausoleum Wanderer, but then do not find any card I need. I still have a window to draw some threats, but I draw additional lands and lose to a Teferi. 

Game 3 he mulligans to six. I lead with a dual land, and he plays basic plains. I play another land and he plays a second plains. Given that he is most likely missing lands, I deploy a 4/3 Knight of Autumn and he untaps and plays Island Search for Azcanta. This is awkard. He then Paths my Knight and my Spell Queller and 3x Unified Will aren't enough pressure to prevent him from running away with the game from the Search. It's possible I should have held up Spell Queller on turn three since I had a feeling he had the Search in his hand. I could have played Queller and the used Knight to kill the Search later on. I'm still not certain about this play.

0-1

Round 2 against Jund:

Not much to say here. He missed a Bob trigger one game, and I resolved a Company both games and easily won.

1-1

Round 3 against Enduring Ideal (!?)

Game 1 I lead with Noble Hierarch, he plays a Porphory Nodes. I decline to add to the board and the cards trade. He plays some scry lands including New Benalia. I Spell Queller a Suppresion Field just to get a threat on the board. I then have to Queller a Ghostly Prison, and then I must Queller the Runed Halo. I'm still not certain what he's playing. It looks like a RW Prison deck. I attack him down to 8 life and hold up Company instead of playing a Drogskol Captain. He plays a Ghostly Prison and I play Company but can't get enough power in play to kill him the next turn. I instead elect to protect myself from sweepers I haven't seen and put two Selfless Spirits into play. His next turn he plays Phyrexian Unlife and now I'm much further away from killing him. I manage an attack down to 4 life, but his follow up Form of the Dragon locks me out of the game. 

Game 2 he starts by suspending two Lotus Bloom. I have a turn three Kira that is answered by Porphory Nodes. I can kill the Nodes with Knight and play Mausoluem Wanderer, or try to hold up Unified Will with his two Lotus coming off suspend. I still hadn't seen Enduring Ideal so I messed this one up and didn't hold up Will. He resolved Ideal and put Overwhelming Splendor into play, and I was pretty much unable to win on the spot. A Dovescape and Form of the Dragon followed and I was done.

I think I could have won both games against Ideal though perhaps game two would have been tricky still. I think I got a bit unlucky against UW control but I was in good positions. Overall I'm still happy with the deck.

What's Next

Going forward I would play 4 Reflector Mage 4 Aether Vial and no Path to Exile. I'd also cut the Knight of Autumns from the sideboard. They really don't do enough for me. I'm not sure what the last two cards in the SB would be, maybe a Dispel and a Ceremonious Rejection. The fourth Unified Will is also an option.

As for Magic, I haven't been playing much outside of Arena anyway so I have no idea what I'll do. I'm qualified for the next (last) RPTQ and after that I'm not sure how much I'll be on the weekend grind. I do plan on attending some Grand Prix (Magic Fest) next year. I'll still play when I'm interested but I have no need to play when I'm not.

Thanks for reading,

Ty

RPTQ Prep Week 3 and 4: Sideboarding

When playing MTG Arena, there are game modes that are single game matches. Playing these modes and seeing my results has shown how much better I am at playing games two and three of a match. Part of this is knowing what is in your opponent's deck. This makes mulligans easier in constructed, and informs which tricks to play around in limited. Another part could be a tendancy to play decks that are less powerful but more flexible. A bigger part is probably my strength at sideboarding (and playing decks with stronger sideboards).

I think sideboarding is the main skill that separates pro level players from the players stuggling to make it. This is most apparent at comments on articles and mentions on Twitter from players asking the pros for sideboarding guides. As the saying goes, give a man a SB guide and he'll have some success with that deck, but teach a man how to sideboard and he'll have success with all decks in the future.

Sideboarding and Preparation

With my limited time to actually play games these days, developing a coherent sideboard and sideboarding plan is one of the best ways to prepare. You can do it in small increments and spend idle time thinking about it. My success has almost always come when I've been very well prepared in my sideboard strategy. In this way, I'm much more Caruana than Carlsen (perhaps the delusion that I could do what Fabiano does but could never do what Magnus does made me root for the Norwegian).

One tool to do this is something called the Elephant Method (I have no idea where this originated or why it's called this.) Since Modern has so many possible sideboard cards and possible matchups, this can be quite more involved that a block constructed deck. I use it to get an idea of how many cards I could realistically cut and bring in for each matchup I'm concerned about, choosing cards with multiple use cases when appropriate. The last few times I've done this in Modern I've ended up with about 90 cards that I would like to have access to. The hard part is narrowing down to the final 75.

The most important part of this process is knowing which cards are good and which cards are bad in a certain matchup. To do this I like to think of a ranked list of cards I want to have most often to cards I'd rather not see. It's easy to cut the dead cards, but a majority of the sideboard cuts won't be dead cards, just whatever is at the bottom of the list.

For example, when thinking about Bant Spirits vs UW control decks, coming up with cards you don't want starts easy. Path to Exile and / or Reflector Mage are both largely dead in the matchup. But the next cards down are somewhat harder to figure out. Working in reverse from cards we want most, you want to see Collected Company, Mausoleum Wanderer, Spell Queller, Drogskol Captain, Selfless Spirit, Rattlechains, Aether Vial and Noble Hierarch in some numbers. What you then see is that Supreme Phantom and Phantasmal Image are not that important in this particular matchup. While still being useful, they don't do much on their own and will largely be win-more type cards. If I had more cards to bring in that just removing dead cards, I would look to cut some of these.

Sideboarding in Modern

As I said before, sideboarding in Modern has way more possibilities than other formats. There are many cards that when played in the right matchup will effectively win you the game on the spot. If you can afford to play these cards, you probably should. This is one of the stregnths of Bant Spirits.

Since a deck can be thought of as 75 cards that is "pre-boarded" vs a specific matchup or archetype, what do you choose to pre-board against? Modern has so many possible opponents, so you want to play cards that have the most utility across all matchups (they are dead less often than narrower cards). An additional incentive to play the most flexible cards in the main deck comes from the nature of the way many games play out. Against most of the combo decks in the format, having the correct card is more important than having more card advantage. You can win while still drawing a dead card or two, as long as the cards that do something do it well. However in a matchup like a midrange mirror, drawing a dead card in the mid to late game will have an outsized negative effect than drawing the dead card vs combo (or control). This is why you should be mainly preboarded for matchups that will come down to attrition. Including a large number of Good Cards in your main deck is one good way to do this.

The Spirits Sideboard

Spirits is the first deck in a long time where I felt that the different maindeck configurations could have drastically different sideboards. It truly has been a whole-75 process. I think this is because so many of the cards in the maindeck are filler-type cards.

I haven't quite finalized my list, but I will be playing 3-4 Rest in Peace, 3-4 Stony Silence, and 2-3 Damping Sphere. I will also most likely have 2-4 Unified Will and probably a couple of Knight of Autumn. The exact numbers will depend on how many Path to Exile and Reflector Mage are played in the maindeck, as well as how many dead cards I perceive for the matchups I am expecting. The metagame I'm expecting will consist of KCI, Storm, Hardened Scales, Humans, Spirits, UWx control, Tron, Dredge, and BGx decks. There may be some new Phoenix decks that people will play, but the information I have makes me think the deck isn't quite good enough yet.

The Final Push

I have two days to get the deck locked down to something I'm happy with. I feel further away than I'd like to be, but I also feel like I have some good ideas I'm leaning toward that could be an advantage. I promise to write regardless of the result, at least to share my decklist.

Until then,

Ty

RPTQ Prep Week 1 and 2: Bad Cards and Good Cards

Building decks in formats like Modern and Legacy is different than Standard. When building for Standard, it is mainly about trying to figure out which cards are actually Good Cards, and then play as many of them as possible. In the older formats, there are so many Good Cards that it is fairly simple to play a deck full of them. Jund and Jeskai Midrange would be examples of decks entirely made of Good Cards.

Having a deck full of Good Cards in the older formats isn't good enough. It is advantageous in certain games, especially midrange mirrors, but you can do better. The opportunities for incredible synergy are almost infinite. Just compare Jund Midrange with Jund Death's Shadow. By replacing some Good Cards with some Bad Cards with synergy, your deck becomes more than a pile of good cards, but a machine with a goal. Street Wraith and Death's Shadow aren't exactly Good Cards. Opt and Terminus are also not Good Cards, but the UWx control decks began winning much more often when they added that package.

Hopefully this illustrates my point about what a Good Card is. It's somewhat hard to define, and probably just my arbitrary opinion. A Good Card is something that has a proven pedigree as one of the pillars of the format. A good card is consistently powerful and doesn't require other cards to perform. A Good Card goes in multiple decks with different strategies.

The general deckbuilding process is something like this:

• Identify a synergy or strategy to exploit
• Include enough sufficiently synergistic cards to acheive a critical mass for your strategy
• Fill the deck with Good Cards to ensure a baseline power level and the ability to play games when things aren't going according to plan

It's the third point that many decks skip on. They go all-in on plan A and leave themselves vulnerable to disruption. They have to backup plan for when things go wrong. This is a legitimate strategy, but one I prefer to avoid when possible.

Bad Cards in Spirits

Most of the cards with Spirit type are probably Bad Cards. They do very little on their own (but a lot more that other tribes like Merfolk). The best two are Spell Queller and Mausoleum Wanderer. Once you include those in your deck you probably want to play the Supreme Phantom and Drogskol Captain. Selfless Spirit helps protect your army. The synergy is building. You add Rattlechains for more protection, Phantasmal Image for rendundancy. You could fill out the list with even more spirits. Nebelgast Herald is reasonable, as are Remorseful Cleric, Geist of Saint Traft, Kira, Great Glass-spinner, etc. 

But the decks don't play all Bad Cards. You want Aether Vial, a Good Card that syngergizes with your strategy. You want Path to Exile, the cheapest and most flexible removal spell available in your colors. The Bant version plays Noble Hierarch and Collected Company, two cards that scream Good Card when compared with any of the Spirits already in the deck.

I've build lists with different combinations of Bad Cards instead of Good Cards. Here is some feedback:

I tried a UW only list with Curious Obsession. This card was much better than I thought it would be. The same goes with Smuggler's Copter. To enable these cards, I played two Judge's Familiar, which also overperformed. Despite the good results, they still aren't on the Noble Hierarch and Collected Company level. The only advantage to running a UW only list at this point would be to play the Good Card Mutavault, but I believe it to have negative synergy with the cards already in the deck.

Additional Good Cards in Spirits

I also tried a version with a four-color mana base to support Collected Company and Lingering Souls. I played Birds of Paradise instead of Aether Vial, but had to cut Path to Exile to keep enough creatures in the deck for CoCo. Lingering Souls is a Good Card, but it wasn't needed, just nice to have. Whenever I find a card is "just nice to have" in Modern, I always try to replace it with a much more impactful card.

I've also been playing one Jace, the Mind-Sculptor in the sideboard. One of the kings of Good Cards, he definitely performs when he is in play. Whether or not I will have room in the sideboard for him at the end of testing remains to be seen.

Some Metagame Considerations

I really hate Remorseful Cleric. I've lost several games that I would have won if it had been the 3rd or 4th Selfless Spirit. When it has been useful, it's only been fine. Against Snapcaster Mage, Selfless Spirit is often just as good.

However, Dredge is real. I've finally played a few matches and I am worried. I don't think Spirits is favored to win unless it draws a hate card of some kind. I will certainly be playing three Rest in Peace in the sideboard, and probably consider playing the fourth. Perhaps the Cleric makes it's way back into the list to save sideboard space eventually.

Knight of Autumn is probably needed. While Reclamation Sage is a card that I've always found to be "just nice to have", Knight does enough that it can be actually a Good Card. When I cast Collected Company and saw my two Blessed Alliance against Burn, I decided to reconsider Knight. It can't do everything you want it to (I don't think it is very good against Death's Shadow for instance), but if enough situation come up where it is better than "just nice to have" I'll play one or two.

Next Weeks

While I'm not quite locked in, there is a lot of benefit to playing Spirits. It will probably still be good in the metagame. It will be hard to hate out. I have all the cards already. Maybe I'll find more time over Thanksgiving to get some more hours in with anything to finally lock in to something.

RPTQ Prep Week 0

Once again, I'll be attempting to chronicle my preparation process for the upcoming Modern RPTQ. Since I won the PPTQ in early September, I haven't played much Modern at all. I spent a lot of time practicing limited for GP Denver. I've also been messing around on MTG Arena (short review: I like it). Otherwise, I haven't been playing much at all.

I'm calling it Week 0 to go over what little I have done that wasn't focused testing for RPTQ. At this stage, it is most likely I'll be playing Bant Spirit again. I won the PPTQ with it, and it won the most recent GP, so I don't see much reason to switch to something else. However, I'm always willing to try something new, and when I get my brew hat on I can play a bunch of random stuff just for fun.

Kelvin Chew Bant

I put together the Kelvin Chew Bant list in paper to play between rounds at GP Denver. I only played it against UW Control. I could not see how this deck ever wins despite playing a lot of cards I like quite a bit. UW is probably not the best matchup. Voice of Resurgence is unplayable against Terminus. It has similar style to the Todd Stevens style GW deck I had success with last year, but is more tempo oriented without any larger creatures to pressure the opponent. I'm sure it is fine, and the Jaces and Teferis I had in the SB were very strong but it didn't seem like anything special.

One thing I noticed while sleeving this deck though was how good Meddling Mage is, especially with Spell Queller. Meddling Mage is one of the reasons Humans is so strong, and I found in games against UW I was actively looking for all the Mages I could find with this deck. With those lessons in mind, I decided to try something new.

Meddling Mage Spirits

Merfolk master Nikachu has been playing a few copies of Peek in his latest lists. Given the similarities of Merfolk and Spirits, I wondered about including Peek in a straight UW shell. It gives another turn 1 play, and could also allow for playing Meddling Mage. Many Spirits decks play Thalia, a card I'm not a huge fan of in the list. I thought Meddling Mage could fill that slot, especially with Peek in the deck. I played this list in a MTGO league and did not have much success. Peek making your cards costs 1 more off the top was very annoying, and the Meddling Mages didn't do enough when I resolved them. I was still rusty a bit so maybe that lead to some losses, but I don't think this is the upside for sticking with two colors.

Merfolk, yet again

I'll probably always go back to Merfolk every few months. I just enjoy it so much, even when I know its much worse than Humans and Spirits now. After seeing the not-so-obvious-to-me synergy between Noble Hierarch and Aether Vial, I decided to go back to my Noble Hierarch Merfolk CoCo list and add Vial back in. I also finally got to play some reps with Merfolk Trickster in Modern. You don't have a basic forest so Field of Ruin can be a problem for casting CoCo, but Tideshaper Mystic can always help fix your mana. The deck was surprisingly resilient, much more so that Spirits or Humans thanks to Silvergill Adept and some spice in the SB like Kumena and Jace. Overall the deck is fine, but adding green doesn't really get you enough SB cards to make it worth it to me.

Combo Elves

One final deck I attempted to play was a more combo-focused Elves list with Cloudstone Curio and Beast Whisperer. The thinking was that Beast Whisperer could be a Glimpse of Nature you can Summoner's Pact for. I don't have the exact list I played but it was almost entirely 4 ofs with singleton Walking Ballista and Craterhoof Behemoth. I found that actually trying to combo off on MTGO is a huge pain. Also I don't think you have time to take off a turn to cast Cloudstone Curio in Modern, though it was very good without going infinite, just looping Elvish Visionary and Dwynen's Elite could really get out of hand. Beast Whisperer was probably 1 mana too expensive. If it didn't die to Lightning Bolt it may have more potential. Glimps of Nature you can cast for value early (say turn 3 or 4) just to draw a few cards and set up for future, but Beast Whisperer doesn't let you do this. Drawing multiple Summoner's Pacts while trying to play a fair game was very terrible.

Next Week(s)

I have one other brew I may play if I have time, but otherwise I imagine it's going to be focused entirely on Bant Spirits. There still seems to be lots of variations and no real consensus yet on several cards. I want to start honing in on exactly what I want and like.