Merfolk at SCG DFW

Standard Open

This past weekend was the SCG Open in Fort Worth. I played a similar Merfolk list to the one I played last weekend. I swapped a Watertrap Weaver for a Swift Warden and made some sideboard adjustments, but nothing major. I went 3-3 in the Standard Open before dropping. My friend Will Lowry also played the same list and went 3-3-1 before dropping as well. He played it again on day two in the Standard Classic, finishing 4-4. Here are some takeaways.

Unlike last week, my opponents decks seemed much better. Almost all had a clear plan and sometimes the plans were difficult for us to beat. Thief of Sanity and Thought Erasue from both Esper and Sultai variants proved difficult to beat. Theif would be impossible to kill while using your best cards against you. Thought Erasure would let them play for the correct late game plan by preventing your countermagic from being useful or letting your midrange cards take over. Your great draws still felt very good but there seemed to be fewer and fewer of them. I think we were winless in a combined four matches against Esper Control, which I had counted on being a good matchup when preparing for the RTPQ.

My rounds were as follows:
R1 - RG Aggro W
R2 - UR Drakes L
R3 - UG Reclamation Creatures (No Nexus, Biogenic Ooze, Dream Eater, Adapt creatures) W
R4 - Temur Reclamation Niv-Mizzet L
R5 - Mono Red W
R6 - Esper Control L

I was willing to call it a loss and move on. I'll credit my RPTQ win to a few lucky matchups. Will wasn't willing to give up so he continued playing on Sunday and kept finding more and more flaws with the deck. It is still a fun deck and I think it has potential but I'm unsure what to do to fix it. I'd start with 4x Kraul Harpooner in the sideboard.

Modern Classic

I brought some of my Modern Merfolk cards just in case I didn't make day two and didn't want to play Standard again. This was exactly the situation I found myself in, so I decided to play a brew I had been thinking about. I was going to play Merfolk with 4x Lighting Bolt 4x Wizard's Lightning. I began pulling the cards out I needed and realized I forgot to bring my Mutavaults. This may have been a blessing in disguise, because it let me redo the manabase and play the following list:

3 Cursecatcher

4 Silvergil Adept

4 Benthic Biomancer

4 Harbinger of Tides

4 Merfolk Trickster

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Master of the Pearl Trident

3 Merrow Reejery

4 Wizard's Lightning

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Aether Vial

4 Spirebluff Canal

3 Steam Vents

4 Flooded Strand

4 Polluted Delta

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

2 Island

Sideboard

2 Mistcaller

2 Grafdigger's Cage

4 Wizard's Retort

2 Unified Will

1 Ceremonius Rejection

2 Alpine Moon

2 Dispel

I went 6-3, losing the last round playing for prizes. The deck was a fun take but I don't think the red is entirely necessary. The bolts caught some people off guard in game one, and were very useful against other creature decks where I could never be attacked with combination of bolts, Harbinger, and Trickster. You should absolutely cut a Steam Vents for an Island if you play this again. The Alpine Moon was very impressive in the SB and something I would play again. I missed Mutavault in a couple of matchups and felt like I needed another land or two in the draws that didn't include Aether Vial. Benthic Biomancer was not as great as I thought. I would prefer 4th Cursecatcher and probably the 4th Reejery and 2 Biomancer if I were to play it again. 

My rounds were as follows:
R1 - Jeskai Control- L

R2 - UW Control - W

R3 - UW Spirits - W

R4 - MonoRed Phoenix - L

R5 - Burn - W

R6 - MonoRed Phoenix - W

R7 - Hardened Scales - W

R8 - RG Scapeshift - W

R9 - RW Prison - L

I'm probably done with Merfolk in both formats for a while, but I'm sure I'll come back to revist them at some point in the future.

RPTQ Report *TOP 8*

My previous two posts about preparation for this event are here and here.

It was the last RPTQ for the foreseeable future (who knows what the future for MTG holds at this point anyway). I figured why not play the deck I wanted to. I've loved Merfolk for so long, dating back to this event. I've played it in countless events in Modern and Legacy. When they reprinted Silvergil Adept, I even made Will Lowry play it in our Team SCG Open last January. I've been playing it occasionally on MTG Arena with a small hope that they might improve the deck when RNA came out, but I wasn't expecting much. 

Here is this list I played.

I definitely would not say that I broke it. It is a good deck, probably good enough for top tier in Standard at least as of now. The format still seems wide open so having a good proactive strategy and very flexible reactive cards is a good place to be. It has some weak spots which I'll get to later, but I don't expect it to change the metagame.

The Tournament

For the first time, the Dallas RPTQ had enough players that all eight members of top eight would qualify for the PT. 99 people showed up to play, so it looked like a record of 6-1 or 5-0-2 would get the invite. I was surpised at the turnout given that it was also Super Bowl Sunday. I think it being the last RPTQ had more qualified players than in the past.

Round 1 - Mono Blue Tempo

I win game one with four Merfolk Mistbinder to force him to chump with a Tempest Djinn. Game two I try to buy some time with a Sleep but he was able to stabilize and I ran out of gas. Game three he had his own Sleep and I maybe got too aggressive in response and lost to a Merfolk Trickster.

0-1

Round 2 - Esper Midrange

Game one I have an aggressive start with multiple Kumena's Speakers and Mistbinder. I was able to finish him off with a Trickster. Game two I use Transmogrifying Wand to turn his two Hero of Precinct One into Oxen. I then stole his Thief of Sanity with Entrancing Melody and played a second copy when I attacked him. He played a Lyra, but she also turned out to be an Ox in disuguise.

1-1

Round 3 - Mardu Aggro

Game one I do some early damage in race with his Boros Challengers, but eventually the board stalls after I Spell Pierce his Heroic Reinforcements. I can't attack because of his Judith but he doesn't have any good attacks either. Eventually I draw the fourth land I need for Sleep and win. Game two I misplay and steal the wrong Boros Challenger with Entrancing Melody so his lives through the Deafening Clarion. I trade my Kumena for it but he draws more gas off the top. Game three I'm in control the whole time drawing multiple cards off Kumena that his deck isn't really capable of killing and I easily win.

2-1

Round 4 - Esper Control

Game one is the most absurd thing I experienced on the day. I trade creatures for his removal and counterspells early, setting up a Kumena in play with Swift Warden back up vs his one card in hand. He plays Ixalan's Binding, I cast the Wardern but he topdeck Absorb. I'm now very unlike to win but we keep playing. The pace of play is fast and furious. I resolve a couple of Silvergill Adepts and they keep pressure on his Teferis. I kill the first two easily and with a little effort I'm also able to kill his third. Eventually he kills all my creatures and gets back to almost 20 life with Absorb and Vraska's Contempt. I'm still waiting for the inevitable loss but he hasn't shown me a win condition yet. Eventually he uses The Eldest Reborn to take my Swift Warden from my yard and start attacking me. I'm at 20 still and he is running low on library. I play some creatures to try to block, but he either counters or kills them. Eventually one sticks but he has Dispersal to get in some damage. I finally manage to chump for one turn, and he decks after attacking me to 2. I'm stunned since I was mainly continuing to play just to see his deck. I make short work of him game two with my twleve counterspell sideboard plan.

3-1

Round 5 - Sultai

He's playing more UG splashing black for Thought Erasure and Hostage Taker. I prefer this version of Sultai personally than one that plays a lot of double black cards. I win game one when he never draws a fourth mana source. Game two he has two Thought Erasure to take my two Entrancing Melody and I'm too far behind. Game three he uses Hostage Taker to play my Merfolk Mistbinder, pumping his Branchwalker, Jadelight Ranger, and Zeganna! I fortunately have a large board myself with the other three Mistbinders and Kumena. He can't attack and eventually I draw into Sleep for the win.

4-1

Round 6 - WU Midrange

His deck had Knight of Grace, History of Benalia, Senate Guildmage(!), Teferi, and Absorb. I really wanted to find a deck with Senate Guildmage in it, but I'm not sure this is the right spot. Game one I Spell Pierce his Ixalan's Binding on my Kumena and he runs away with the game. Game two he's stuck on three mana so I put as much pressure on him to kill him before he can Settle or Cleansing Nova me and I'm able to do it.

5-1

After six rounds, the point totals of the top 12 players looked like this:

18

16

16

15

15

15

15

15

15

15

15

12

The top four players can draw. The 15 that gets paired down has to play. The table 4 match also has to play. Table 3 can draw if the 15 that gets paired down loses, otherwise they have to play. 

I had by far the worst tiebreakers, so I end up with the pair down. In this situation it's actually not that bad since I can hopefully get a concession since the 12 point player won't get in with a win (assuming table 3 draws). I'm fairly certain table 3 knows what's up since I told Jason Cornell what would happen as we analyzed the standings together and he ended up on table 3. 

I'm paired against Hal Brady, a long time friend, and I explain the situation. He is still holding out hope that maybe he can sneak in, so he tells me we will play and if I win he won't have to worry about making the difficult decision to concede. If he were to win, he says he'd still think about it.

Round 7 - Mono Blue Tempo

Game one I mulligan to five and get stuck with an uncastable Swift Warden. I also have Sleep that might let me steal a win but I never draw the fourth land. Game two I have a very fast start and he doesn't have Curious Obsession so the race is much easier. I kill him while still having Incongruity backup to stop him if he were to get enough damage. Game three is very close but he has Curious Obsession turn two and a follow up one-drop that prevents me from using Trickster to stop it. I have multiple one drops and do my best to push through damage, but he has the Dive Down to protect is Pteremander when I try for Incongruity to prevent lethal.

5-2

At this point Hal says he's going to concede. At first I don't think I hear him correctly but we get the result down on the match slip and I'm now 6-1 and locked for top 8 and my ninth Pro Tour! Table three ended up drawing on time, so we also avoided the feel-bad of Hal giving up a spot since he would have missed top 8 even with the win. Hal is now my third favorite Magic player in Texas!

Made top 8 of the RPTQ and I'm now qualified for London! Huge thanks to @HalBrady for scooping in the last round. pic.twitter.com/mjOYwo1E0v

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) February 4, 2019

Karma Comes Back

I've conceded in spots like Hal's before. I've conceded four times in the Finals of PTQs when I was unable to attend the PT. But I never have been on the receiving end of one of these concessions until now (maybe I'm too nice). 

I fully plan on playing this at the SCG Open this weekend. I'll need to relook at the Mono Blue matchup since I lost twice to it. It seems like this is the one deck where I'd rather have Dive Down than Spell Pierce, or maybe an actual bounce spell to handle the Curious Obsession draws. I'm sure there are some other cards I can try too. 

I had planned on going to London for the Grand Prix anyway as part of a family vacation to Ireland to visit my sister-in-law, but now I get to play the Pro Tour instead! Also, getting part of the trip paid for is nice. Another PT, maybe I'll finally cash at one!

Thanks,

Ty

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.

The Deckbuilder's Dream

I'm writing this before playing in the RPTQ this weekend. By the time this will be published, I'll have a result. Whether it is a good result or a bad result (and really there is never any in between at events like these), I wanted to capture my thoughts as they are right now, 72 hours away from the tournament.

What is the Dream?

The dream of every deckbuilder is to make a deck that is perfectly positioned to win the tournament. When this happens, the actual winning will almost feel like an afterthought. The best way to do this is to have the most powerful and consistent deck in the room with no bad matchups, and also for no one else to have the deck. 

For many players, this dream isn't attainable. Most players spend time reacting to the metagame. They settle for copying existing lists, maybe changing a card or two. They might not even care to adventure into deck building. The opportunities to play in events before the Pros or Results have created the established metagame just isn't that common either. When some new technology does show up, they can copy it, but so can the rest of the field. What is game-changing one week can be hated out by a couple of sideboard cards the next week.

Chasing the Dream

I've come close a few times to acheiving the dream in the past. Most of my success and pathways to the Pro Tour have been limited format mastery (OLS, INN, RTR, THS, RIX) or mastery of the specific Tier 1 constructed deck (CawBlade, MonoBlack Devotion). I can remember a few times where it felt like I had the best deck in the room and was destined to win.

States 2011 - I played Dungrove Elder ramp with Kessig Wolf Run and Primeval Titan. This was just like the list that won the SCG the week before but added the Elders to win the mirror and provide stickier threats vs control. It had done well in the grinders for byes at an Australian GP that thanks to the time zone, I was able to read about before spitballing a list of all the cards I wanted to include about an hour before the tournament. This was less about having the right list and more about being faster to react to the information. By the next week, the deck was known and not particularly dominating but it was perfect that one day. Plus I didn't really come up with the idea on my own so not quite the Dream.

Modern PTQ 2012 - It was the first Modern PTQ. I had played at the first Modern PT where I thought I broke the format. Turns out, everyone had broken the format and while my deck was incredibly powerful and consistent, it was about the same level as everyone else's. After several waves of bannings, I brewed up an aggressive Boros aggro list that played the right cards and a soon to be calling card of mine - an incredible sideboard. I recall eating dinner after intentionally drawing in round six and David Thomas asking me if I thought I was going to win, and I just knew I would. The deck wasn't the most powerful howeverful, mainly I had a focused gameplan against the Big Three (Jund, Affinity, Twin) decks of the time and about ten times as much Modern experience as anyone in the state at the time. So not quite the Dream.

Regionals Hawaii 2008 / 2010 - Being a step ahead of the players in Hawaii was fairly easy. It was a small community of competitive players. Having access to the cards you needed was a big step. I played RG Countryside Crusher in 2008 that crushed Faeries (it was a known PT list) and Mythic Conscription in 2010 (a week after Matt Sperling got to live the real dream and win a PTQ the first week it was legal). Both results were good, but not the Dream. I played Mythic Conscription again a week later for a PTQ and lost in the top 4 to a now-prepared MonoRed opponent.

SCG Legacy Open 2013 - Is my Twitter profile pic really 5 years old? I guess I'll need to take a new one soon. Anyway, this probably felt most like the Dream but this was less about deck building and more about reading the text box of True-Name Nemesis, finding the physical cards and putting four copies in my Legacy deck. I know, real big brain stuff.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I've always tried to chase the Dream at the Pro Tours I've played, usually to my detriment. The best players know its not about where the deck comes from as long as you win. And perhaps my low opinion of my play ability when compared with the PT regulars has me looking for an edge in risky deckbuilding when I shouldn't. Many times I've been close, or built a deck a set or two too soon. 

For the upcoming RPTQ, I'll be playing the deck below. I have done very little losing with it while testing on MTGA (more on this in the next post). Maybe I can live the dream one more time.

4 Benthic Biomancer

4 Kumena's Speaker

4 Silvergill Adept

4 Merfolk Mistbinder

4 Merfolk Trickster

2 Swift Warden

4 Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca

4 Incubation / Incongruity

2 Wizards Retort

4 Spell Pierce

2 Sleep

4 Breeding Pool

4 Hinterland Harbor

4 Unclaimed Territory

2 Forest

8 Island

Sideboard

2 Sleep

4 Negate

2 Wizard's Retort

2 Transmogrifying Wand

2 Entrancing Melody

3 Karn, Scion of Urza

Best of One: My Thoughts

This is a companion piece (but not necessarily a rebuttal) to the post here. A lot of my opinions are reflected in this piece by SaffronOlive, and expressed better than I can. I will cover some more deep thinking or nuanced points that I haven't seen or heard mentioned yet.

What is Winning?

A fun question I like to pose to people sometimes is "What is the purpose of a Magic tournament?" There are prizes to be won and invites to be handed out, but these exist outside of the game and tournament structure for the most part. No player can reach a winning percentage high enough to guarantee victory, so it isn't a very accurate measure of skill. The only true purpose of a Magic tournament is somewhat obvious and reductive, though I find it fascinating to think about:

The purpose of a Magic tournament is to determine the winner of the tournament.

Similarly, the purpose of a match is to determine the winner of the match. The purpose of the game is to determine the winner of the game. Much of the way we do things in competitive Magic is because that is the way it has always been done. I find it fun to think about possible alternatives, and with MTGA the Best of One Match has actually been put into practice.

Ninety-seven Percent

WotC claims 97% of games on MTGA are played best of one. This does not surprise me. I'd image a similar number could be stated for paper MTG if you could somehow obtain the data. If there are ten million MTG players and only ~100,000 competitive players, you can see how that might be so. People playing on their kitchen table aren't trying to do anything more than find out who wins the game. If they play more than one game, they don't have much reason to combine them into matches. Sideboards are more of a hassle and can be seen as unsporting. So to me the 97% number makes sense.

Skin in the Game

The shift in thinking happens once something is on the line. Playing for a prize or reward that is only available to the winner creates a structure outside of the game being played. I'll call this the "event structure". Unlike a tournament which is trying to determine a winner, the MTGA event structure is trying to allocate rewards.

I tried to ballpark what I think my lifetime percentages of games played where there was something on the line. I'm guessing something around 50% of games. I've probably played close to a thousand sanctioned events with some type of prize on the line. I've also done several hundred unsanctioned team drafts with cards, packs, cash, or a combination of all three on the line. On the other hand, I spent many years as a casual player while in middle school and high school. Even the tournaments we played were the purest of the form: they were only to determine a winner. No prizes. I've also spent many hundreds of hours playtesting either in real life or online with MTGO or Magic Workstation. I've even played quite a bit of casual constructed on MTGO before the 2-man queues were available, or just for fun. So I feel like 50% is accurate representation (though the number of games with nothing on the line isn't going to be increasing as much as those with something on the line going forward). 

Who Benefits?

The math is pretty simple: if your game win percentage is greater than 50%, you will have a higher match win percentage by playing best of three. Conversely, a winning percentage below 50% will result in an overall lower match win percentage in best of three. The further from 50% your game win percentage is the larger difference you will see. My paper match win percentage is around 64%, which is a 60% game win percentage. Given the skill gap in sideboarding, the percentage difference might be greater.

 On MTGA, daily and weekly win rewards are tied to games, so there is no incentive to play best of three to achieve these rewards any quicker if you are a winning player. The best of three modes require the harder to obtain gem currency and don't offer any substantial change in prizes. Most people are going to choose best of one without a significant outside factor. Having the rewards be focused for best of one makes a lot of sense. When you most want the rewards while building collection, you might not have the cards to be prepared to play best of three (or even competitive tier decks).

Breaking with Precedents, and Setting New Ones

For over twenty-five years, Magic matches have been best of three for competitive play. To time the announcement of a ten million dollar Magic Pro League on MTGA with a focus on best of one matches doesn't seem to make sense.A focus on best of one will make it harder for casual players to make the jump to competitive paper play (where Wizards makes most of their money in card sales).

There is also setting a new precedent with regards to the mulligan system. MTGA uses an algorithm when choosing your opening hand in a best of one match. It deals itself two hands and picks the one with mana ratio closest to the true percentage of the deck. If a player becomes accustomed to this, and move to true random opening hands will lead to more mulligans. A player with a weak understanding may get unnecessarily discouraged by their perceived bad luck. Or worse, they could conclude that there is more cheating going on at the higher levels. 

New Opportunities

I wrote much of the above sections thinking I supported a best of three focus. I've since done some more brainstorming and can see some cool new ways to take the game with best of one that I'd like to see tried out if that is the direction chosen. I still think overall I lean towards best of three, especially because the strategic depth of sideboards, but I'm also always hoping they try more new stuff.

One thing they could try is an increase in the number of rounds. Instead of a fifteen round best of three Grand Prix, you could have a thirty round best of one. The additional rounds would eliminate a need for a top eight playoff. It would also let you play against a larger number of opponents, increasing the social aspect.

There are many other ideas you could try out with a best of one setup. Having a lineup of decks that you play best of one with (as was tried in the player of the year playoff) is another possible wrinkle. 

The Takeaway

Magic is still Magic, regardless of the stakes or setup. I'm sure I'll still be playing regardless of what the focus will be. Even having the option to mix it up like this shows how much depth that is still being discovered in the game.

I'll be back in the New Year to talk about Standard for the next RPTQ. 

-Ty