Modern Merfolk Primer

I've started writing this article many times. For a long time, I put it off because no one was interested. Recently however, Merfolk has been putting up results, including winning a Grand Prix. What I want to accomplish in writing this is explain why the deck is good, what cards are important in certain matchups, and the basic strategy for playing it.

I've played a bunch of Merfolk in my life in just about every format. Modern is the youngest of all formats, but I've probably played more games with Fish there than any other format. The power level of Merfolk has remained about the same for the duration of the format, but the power level of the rest of the format has shifted to where now its no longer strictly a tier 2 option, and might even be tier 1.

First things first: Modern Merfolk is not a "Fish" deck. By this I mean that it is not trying to resolve one or two creatures and attack while using countermagic to stall the game until the opponent is dead. It is not an "Aggro-Control" deck, or however you want to describe the "Tempo" "Delver" archetypes that no one can agree on a name for. Merfolk in Modern is pure Aggro. In a lot of ways, it's like White Weenie, but without the hate creatures, or Zoo without the burn spells. I know this doesn't sound impressive, and it really isn't, but the deck does win.

Why is Merfolk better than other aggressive strategies? First of all, almost all of your threats are interchangeable. Three or more different anthem creatures in the deck is maximum redundancy, making the opponents removal spells less effective. Secondly, the deck has velocity / card advantage built in with Silvergil Adept (and Spreading Seas to a lesser extent). Thirdly, it uses Aether Vial which can lead to some of the best draws available to any deck in the format. It also has four mutavaults, which bring the threat density to a very high level. Finally, the manabase is pain free, which is a surprisingly relevant upside in Modern.

The core of the deck:

4 Mutavault
4 Aether Vial
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident

Mutavault is a land that also is a free 4/4 creature. Its the best card in the deck. I try to aggressively attack with it on turn two when I start with turn one Aether Vial. The mana you lose from not playing a spell on turn two will be easily made up when Vial ticks up higher, and getting free points of damage in is very important for a deck without reach.

Aether Vial is the next best card in the deck. You keep most every hand that has a land and a Vial. It counts pretty much as one land for deck construction purposes, but generates 4 to 8+ mana a game. The primary way to win with the deck is to play multiple creatures in a single turn, and it is the easiest way to achieve that.

Silvergil Adept is the best Merfolk, and thus next on the power rankings. It gives you the ability to pressure the opponent without committing all your resources to the board. It digs for the cards you need to have in the matchup. You can cast it with Mutavault mana. It's great and you should never cut it.

The eight two mana lords are what gives the deck consistency. Combined with Spreading Seas they can make your team unblockable. Also, the strength of Snapcaster Mage in the format right now means you will have incidental islandwalk fairly frequently.

The next group of cards:

4 Merrow Reejery
4 Spreading Seas
4 Cursecatcher

I think Merrow Reejery is almost good enough to be in the first tier. It allows for some crazy explosive starts, even without Aether Vial. In some matchups, it can be slightly too expensive and I might side it out, so it doesn't quite make the top tier, but I would always start four in the main deck.

Spreading Seas is very hit and miss. Sometimes its the best card in a given matchup. Other times it just cycles at sorcery speed. But when its good its great, and that is why you play four in the main deck. Green decks like Jund, Abzan, and Naya sometimes don't run enough actual shock land duals to recover from a well placed Spreading Seas. This limits them to only play one spell a turn, and buys you enough time to steal a victory. It is also very important versus Urzatron decks.

Cursecatcher is the classic Merfolk one-drop, and in my opinion still the best. The rise of Kologhan's Command as a premiere removal spell makes it better than Cosi's Trickster or Tideshaper Mystic. You need at least four one-drops in the deck since you don't have an abundance of turn one plays.

The rest of the deck includes cards from this category:

Harbinger of Tides
Master of Waves
Tidebinder Mage
Phantasmal Image
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Vapor Snag
Dismember
Random Countermagic
Random Blue Legends
21st and 22nd lands
Maindecking SB Cards

Harbinger of Tides is great. It's awesome with Merrow Reejery. The people who say it isn't great probably don't like Reejery. I will probably always play at least three.

Master of Waves is not necessary to the deck. I know it seems like the rise in success of Merfolk has corresponded with the rise in play of this card and it's strength against the popular decks like Grixis and Jund, but it is not essential. I think it is a reasonable card to play in order to put away games faster, but a lot of times in my experience it has just been win more. Putting it in your deck has some significant drawbacks in the way you play, as you are incentivized to tick up your vials past two and three, sometimes stranding other creatures in your hand you could have otherwise played. It does work well with Spreading Seas, and can swing the tougher aggro matchups in your favor. I think because playing any number of these puts you in situations where you tick up vial at a risk, you should play more of them if you play them at all. I would avoid only playing one or two, and try to fit all four in if I were to play the card.

Tidebinder Mage is great when it works, but obviously not great when it doesn't. I always feel like I "get lucky" to have it work game 1, since I'm only playing a couple in the main deck and have to get the right matchup. Unlike Harbinger of the Tides, it allows your opponent to get the mana back by killing the Tidebinder, where Harbinger always sets them back that mana. Tidebinder is better when trying to break through, but Harbinger is better when racing. Harbinger is also better versus non-red and non-green guys (obviously). I prefer Harbinger, but sometimes you might want both.

Phantasmal Image is a lot of ways the opposite of Master of Waves. It keeps your Vials on two, but still increases your clock. It also lets you make some interesting plays by copying the opponents creatures. However it is much worse vs grindier matchups, where the best it can do is copy an adept to avoid risk of being blown out later. In some metagames its probably right to play four of these, but usually it is too much of a liability if you aren't trying to be as fast as possible.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is a great card vs UR and Grixis. It can really throw off the opponents game plan when they are waiting with removal for your lord and instead you play her. She also works great with Spellskite out of the sideboard. I've had great success with her in the main deck to be "pre-boarded" against grixis and other UR decks.

Vapor Snag and Dismember are really the best options for removal in the mono color build. Dismember is nice because it can be another turn one play, but a much worse top deck in the mid to late game racing situation. Vapor Snag is useful in saving your own guys, acting as a pseudo counterspell that can also clear the path for blockers, but it is much worse at answering opponents one and two mana creatures.

Various Counterspells are all pretty bad in the main deck. Remand and other two mana spells are only good in draws that involve Aether Vial. Picking the right one mana spell will just give you frustration when you have the wrong one, and none of them deal with creatures. Spell Pierce is fine, until you play against Tron. Dispel is fine, until you play against Liliana. The best strategy is to play some in the SB that are the best for the matchups you expect, then use them games two and three.

Various Blue Legends include Sygg, River Cutthroat, Thassa God of the Sea, Vendilion Clique, and Venser Shaper Savant. Sygg is cute, but no longer strong enough compared with the other main deck creatures. Thassa is reasonable, helps you to mitigate flood and can occasionally attack. You can also vial her in, but never want to draw two. Venser and Clique don't do enough vs the field to warrant the inclusion in the main deck but could be reasonable sideboard cards. Playing with any makes Minamo actually relevant sometimes, but thats not enough to require it. Minamo still good enough vs Choke to make the cut.

I like to play 21 lands. Most builds play 20 lands. If you play 22 lands, you can play a couple of colorless lands in addition to Mutavault like Tectonic Edge or Ghost Quarter. My logic for playing 21 lands: I am going to keep every one-land hand with Aether Vial, and I want to be better off in those situations at drawing the second land. Some lists run four or more lands in the sideboard to bring in when you side out Aether Vial or you just want more mana to hold up countermagic. It is a good plan but one that takes up a lot of spots that you must sacrifice some matchups (usually no Hurkyll's Recall for the Robots matchup).

Maindecking Sideboard cards like Spellskite, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, or others can be a good way to increase the total number of sideboard cards you can play. I would make sure you have all your plans covered though, you don't want to get stuck with dead cards in the deck after sideboard.

Cards in other colors:

Path to Exile
Sygg, River Guide
Stony Silence
Collected Company

White is the easiest second color to play. You get both Seachrome Coast and Wanderwine Hub which are pain-free sources of both colors. You also get Path to Exile, a real removal spell that can let you play a more traditional game of magic. Stony Silence in the board is a much stronger card vs Affinity, Tron, and Lantern than Hurkyll's Recall, but comes at the cost of having to side out Aether Vial. Sygg River Guide is good enough to always play one, especially with Aether Vial. Other white SB options like Meddling Mage, Burrenton Forge Tender or other anti-red cards, and Detention Sphere can help you versus the wide variety of decks that exist on the fringe of modern. Not having as many islands helps in the mirror. The biggest drawback is your fourth land not always being untapped when you want to activate two Mutavaults, and getting stuck with white cards in your hand and not being able to cast them. I played a UW version at GP OKC that I was very happy with despite not making day two. I punted key games in two matches that I should have easily won.

I've tried just about every color combination of Merfolk, including green for Collected Company, black for Inquisition of Kozilek and Dark Confidant, and red for Lightning Bolt and Blood Moon. The price you pay on the mana base is just never justifiable for the gains you make. Maybe if a good two color Merfolk is printed you can re-evaluate.

Sideboard Cards

Spellskite
Swan Song / Spell Pierce / Dispel
Remand / Mana Leak / Unified Will / Delay
Hurkyll's Recall
Hibernation
Pithing Needle / Phyrexian Revoker
Relic of Progenitus
More Creatures
Lands

I like Spellskite a lot as a sideboard card because it is great in the Bogles and Infect matchups, as well as being good vs Snapcaster + Lightning Bolt decks at protected your guys, especially with Aether Vial and Kira. It also protects from Splinter Twin combo.

Hurkyll's Recall should likely be a four of in your sideboard. It is good enough to beat affinity, and you really don't need too many cards for other matchups in my opinion.

Hibernation is similar to Hurkyll's Recall, but Elves is not as popular as affinity.

The countermagic and other cards really depends on what you are comfortable with. I like Swan Song a lot because it is cheap enough to come in vs URx and actually good vs Scapeshift, but Unified Will is better versus something like Tron and random combo. Dispel is only good at protecting your team, but very good at that. Spell Pierce is probably best in an unknown metagame.

You can play cards like Tidebinder Mage in the sideboard. Some matchups you would rather have it that Hibernation, so I like to run a split. Revoker and Needle are both good versus a variety of decks, but not great against anything specific.

I covered the land SB strategy above, but included it in the list for completeness. It's a good strategy, but one that makes your deck better vs the sideboard of the popular decks and ignores decks that are bad matchups. If that's a SB style you agree with, it's worth considering.



How to Play the Deck;

The deck doesn't play like a traditional Fish deck, but also not like a traditional Aggro deck either. It's not important to use all your mana every turn, or to get an early presence. Many decks are prepared for this, and running your lord out on turn two into lightning bolt, only to have your turn three play get killed by snapcaster bolt will not be a successful strategy.

When you have Aether Vial, sometimes it is best to just wait until the end of their turn to put things into play despite the fact you can do more damage on your turn. The goal is to make it difficult for your opponent to disrupt you. Spreading Seas is a great turn two play instead of getting a creature killed on curve for your opponent. Also waiting to play your guys will let you see more cards and have a better critical mass of creatures.

I keep any one land hand with Aether Vial. I like to play Vial with Mutavault mana and attack with Mutavault on turn two.

I side out Spreading Seas against any deck that already has islands. Playing Spreading Seas before you play your threats is also a good plan, Sometimes you can steal wins by mana screwing your opponent. However against decks that are more aggressive than you, you probably don't have time to play Seas. Sometimes your best plan vs Bogles is to hope they kept the one lander though.

Cursecatcher gets sided out fairly often. When people have sweepers it just gets caught up in the wash, and it's not actually good against many decks.

The biggest advice is to just be patient. Most decks don't play the cards necessary to break up a board of 3+ lords, so try to get that to happen. You don't have to attack into Deceiver Exarch mana.



The Decklist:

I would suggest starting with Paul Rietzl's list from GP OKC to start. It is very streamlined and aggressive without much cute stuff for interacting.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try to update this in the future, maybe elaborate on some spots or add more cards to discuss. If you have any questions post in the comments or tweet at me @ceciliajupe.

Garruk, Apex Predator at SCG Houston

note: this was originally posted on the MTGBazaar website. I've reposted here for archival purposes - Ty (3/11/2021)


SCG Houston February 14/15 2015 - Standard Open 26th Place Report Ty Thomason

Play the deck with the best mana.


That has been rule #1 in my playgroup, ever since the first time I heard it. I think it was Zvi Mowshovitz who described it in the creation of the Mythic deck. You can usually tell a Zvi creation by the mana base. Sometimes the best mana is shared by many decks, so you need other tools. In a small format like standard, that is rarely the case. Spell lands are also a factor in evaluating the best mana. Kessig Wolf Run, Gavony Township, Celestial Colonnade are huge bonuses.

The best mana in standard is Caryatid and Courser. There are only two relevant spell lands in standard: Radiant Fountain and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I value proactive over reactive, so I’ve been playing Nykthos. After PT KTK, Robert Berni was excited about a green devotion deck that killed with Villainous Wealth. Will Lowry was a fan of the RG Monsters deck with 4 Crater’s Claws. We combined the Constellation engine of the first with the consistency and flexibility of the second to create Dr. Claw, our GP San Antonio deck:

Dr Claw

4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voyaging Satyr
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Polukranos, Eater of Worlds
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
2 Arbor Colossus
2 Hornet Queen
2 Genesis Hydra
3 Boon Satyr

4 Crater’s Claws

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
10 Forest
1 Mountain

Sideboard

2 Genesis Hydra
3 Nissa Worldwaker
2 Xenagos, God of Revels
2 Reclamation Sage
4 Nylea’s Disciple
2 Setessan Tactics

This put six players into day 2, and I had the highest finish at 25th place after conceding to David Ochoa in the last round when we were playing for 9th. The deck was a machine in game 1, almost always killing with lethal Crater’s Claws with X routinely greater than 20. There were some issues in post board games against sweepers and Elspeth. The rest of standard season I played GB Whip, but most of our crew stayed with the Claw.

With Fate Reforged added to standard, I went back to green devotion. Whisperwood Elemental helped vs sweepers, and Ugin helped vs Heroic, a previously bad matchup. At the same time, the deck I liked previously, GP Whip, seemed to be negated by the new speed of the format and bigger over the top threats. Recurring Hornet Queens isn’t very effective against decks with Ugin. Will Lowry won a PTQ with a list similar to this. Dr Claw was becoming more and more known and popular, especially in the Texas area.

Trying to come up with ways to beat the mirror lead me to Garruk, Apex Predator as an answer for Ugin. Doomwake Giant plus more enchantments could keep them off devotion to avoid lethal Claws. Black spells also could help against control decks, as well as giving Merciless Executioner for Heroic matchups. I looked at the GB Ramp decks and decided to cut Hornet Queens for Genesis Hydras and a more explosive Nykthos game. The list I registered for SCG Houston incorporated these ideas:
GB Ramp


4 Elvish Mystic
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Voyaging Satyr
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Doomwake Giant
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Polukranos, World Eater

3 Frontier Siege
2 Garruk, Apex Predator
3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

6 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Temple of Malady
4 Windswept Heath
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard

2 Arbor Colossus
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Merciless Executioner
4 Nylea's Disciple
2 Reclamation Sage
3 Nissa, Worldwaker

I wasn’t too concerned with control matchups since in my testing Genesis Hydra was usually enough by itself to get around counters and the threats were diverse enough to beat any specific removal. Thoughtsieze and Read the Bones were in the sideboard at various points, but got cut to make room for higher impact cards. If I wanted something for control going forward, I would play Whisperwood Elemental, but I’m not sure you need it. The third Nissa may have been excessive with fewer forests overall.

I started the tournament off fairly well. The small field meant every player with three losses would make day 2, and I finished day 1 at 7-2 so I was ahead of the curve. I played against RW Aggro twice and went 1-1, Abzan Aggro once 1-0, Abzan Control five times 4-1, and RG Beats 1-0. The deck did what I hoped it would do, but my losses came to mana issues. I kept four land, caryatid, courser, siege on the play against RW game one, but drew nothing but lands the entire game and died. Losing the first game on the play was frustrating, a wasted opportunity. Sure enough I won game two but lost game 3 on the back foot the whole time because of course he has Seeker of the Way. The loss to Abzan Control I kept a mana-light hand on six cards and couldn’t deploy a large enough threat to interact with his Tasigur. After this matchup, I decided to stop bringing in all the Nissas and consider Merciless Executioner for the Abzan Control matchup (I was already bringing it it versus Abzan Aggro).

Day two started out with wins against Mono Red twice, but then I lost three matches in a row. Twice I lost to Abzan Aggro, one match where I flooded in two games, the other where I mulliganed to five twice. The other loss was to Jeskai Tokens, which might be a bad matchup. The final round I defeated Abzan Control to finish at 10-5. My tiebreakers were good enough to get me $200.

I can’t say the tournament wasn’t a success, but I was hoping for a better finish, especially at the start of day 2. I was really happy with the way the deck performed and wouldn’t be upset about playing it again. I was very excited to see Robert Berni win the tournament with the other deck I had helped work on. I’m feeling better and better each new set about my deck building skills.

The tournament was a lot of fun and I really hope Star City Games comes back to Houston soon.

Thanks,
Ty

Tri-lands vs Scry lands

Today on Twitter, StarCityGames.com editor Cedric Phillips had this to say:

Flying across the country editing articles and working on decklists for #SCGPORT. Step one = Get these Nomad Outposts out of Mardu ASAP.
— Cedric Phillips (@CedricAPhillips) December 1, 2014

This sparked a brief back and forth with some of his followers, including myself. I thought I would make a post to clarify my viewpoint and explain my reasoning.

Note: Cedric is not suggesting cutting Outpost from the deck to play more basics, or to play Mana Confluence. He is only comparing it to playing additional scry lands.

My official position is this: Tri-lands are awesome and you should play four of them.

To explain my reasoning, there are a few assumptions I will be making. First, we are talking about 60 card constructed decks. If you have both tri-lands and scry lands in your draft deck, you should just play all of them. Second, current standard decks are mostly homogeneous when it comes to spell power level. If there was a specific card that you HAD to draw in order to win, scry lands are a lot better. The function of scry lands in standard is mostly one of avoiding mana flood, or pushing slightly inferior / matchup dependent cards to the bottom in hopes of drawing better options. Third, you want to play somewhere between 23-26 lands. Many color source balancing issues can be fixed by simply playing more lands (a good trick to remember for limited), but at some point mana flood becomes a real issue.

So starting with the basics. How many colors can you play in a 60 card deck if you only have basic lands? The spells you want to play determine the number of required colored sources you want, and then you add lands to meet those requirements. Frank Karsten did the hard work already. This article shows that if you have double colored mana requirements in two colors and want to play these spells by turn 4, you would need 12 lands of each color. With only basics, this is 24 lands total, and pretty much limits deck construction to two colors. This is also the reason that the conventional wisdom is to draft two color decks in most formats. Without access to common mana fixing like in Khans or RTR block, playing 3 colors requires 19-21 total lands.

As you allow access to dual colored lands, it becomes much easier to meet the minimum requirements set in Franks article. With dual lands available in each color combination, the 12 dual land and 4 of each basic gives you 12 sources of each of three colors while still within 24 land slots. If you allow the tri-land of those three colors, you could end up with 15 sources in each color easily. Franks math was only done to ensure 90% certainity. With more sources you can be more certain of having the colored mana you need. Brad Nelson has shown that when you add enough tri-lands, four color decks become possible!

Unfortunately, tri-lands aren't all upside. They enter the battlefied tapped, but so do scry lands! The issue comes down to how many ETB tapped lands we can afford to play. Another way to look at it is how many untapped sources do we need to play, since we can always play more tapped lands instead of spells. The typical standard Mardu deck plays 9-10 tapped lands.

I love scry lands. I was one of the few people in my play group not disappointed when they were spoiled. New Benalia was always a card I loved. That said, I think they are worse than tri-lands.

What advantages do scry lands have? They help mitigate flood, and the more you play the better they are. However, Most decks in standard also run fetchlands, which undo the scrying you have already achieved in the game. A deck like Blue-White Heroic shouldn't play Windswept Heath because it scrys so much that it would do more harm than good, even considering that it adds to delve to reduce the cost of Treasure Cruise. Scrying can also be used to "fix" your mana, digging you for the colored source you are missing. This isn't an advantage over tri-lands though, since tri-lands already provide the missing source. Deciphering between which land you want to keep and which land to push is another added level of complexity to the deck that might lead to more mistakes. Having to keep a land on top because its the color you need when you already have drawn plenty of mana sources is not taking full advantage of the scrys you get.

It is completely possible to get the mana ratios right using less than 4 copies of a tri-land. With each copy you don't play, you are increasing the liklihood of not having the mana you need. In return, you get to scry. Is the likelihood of the scry helping you out higher than the likelihood of running into mana issues?

@ceciliajupe @liam_ggwp @aulowry I think it is lazy deckbuilding to assume 4 tri-lands is the place to start. It probably isn't.
— Cedric Phillips (@CedricAPhillips) December 1, 2014

Maybe it is lazy deckbuilding, but it's something I've spent lots of time thinking about before. What tri-lands do is very unique and it's hard to find something to compare it to. From the Seaside Citadels of Brian Kibler's Next Level Bant, to the Savage Lands (instead of extra man lands!) of Simon Gortzen's Jund deck, they have a place in deck construction. I think 4 is the starting number, and I wonder how many more I would be willing to play.

Another way to think about tri-lands and their importance is to look at fetch lands in formats where dual lands are fetchable. In a typical Legacy deck, you run many more fetches than duals, many times not even running the full 4 copies of any one dual. This is because fecth lands that can get any of the 3 dual lands you use function as tri-lands until you fetch them. A fetch land in your hand with and single other colored land gives you access to all three colors of mana for your deck. Waiting to crack fetchlands is very important not just for brainstorming, but also so you don't restrict the colors of mana you have access to. Similarly, it is also important to not fetch the last copy of a dual land in your deck unless you have a good reason to. Not having a Tundra to get with Scalding Tarn the turn you need to cast Swords to Plowshares will cost you.

Bonus Top Ten - Top Ten Dual Land Cycles

1.Tundra
2. Hallowed Fountain
3. Adarkar Wastes
4. Mystic Gate
5. Seachrome Coast
6. Celestial Colonade
7. Temple of Enlightenment
8. Glacial Fortress
9. Flooded Strand (number 1 if tundra / hallowed fountain are legal)
10. Skycloud Expanse

Reminder that fetchlands aren't as good without dual lands!

Team Pats Games GP Nashville Report

[Editor's Note: This was originally published on the Pat's Games website in November 2014 (maybe?). Sharing here for archival purposes.]

I was really looking forward to GP Nashville. The last Grand Prix I played in was almost a year ago at GP Dallas. This was the longest time I have gone between GPs since I moved back to Texas. Originally, the plan was for Haibing and me to team with Will Lowry once again, just like at GP San Jose. When a scheduling conflict came up for Will, we contacted the best player in Texas, Robert Berni, and he agreed to be the third player. There are a lot of different theories on who you should team with. Some people want to include players with varied play styles so that each deck has a dedicated pilot, while others say to play with your friends. My theory is to get two people that are better than me, so even if I lose, we could still win the round. Haibing is the best drafter in Texas, and no one is hotter than Berni right now, so this team met my criteria.

The travel to Nashville was uneventful. I had to bring my winter coat since it was much colder than in Houston. Berni arrived in just shorts and flip-flops, but claimed it was no big deal. I guess it was more important to him to pack light. We had dinner with one of the other Texas teams (Chris Mabry, Tony Ho, Nick Lavender), then did a quick draft before heading to bed for the evening. All together I think there were 6 or 7 teams representing the Lone Star State at the tournament, a much higher turnout that I expected. 

I really like sealed deck, probably more than any non-eternal format. Team sealed is usually just as good, if not better, but after doing several practice sealeds and building the pool at the GP, I think this team format might be worse than others. In theory, all 5 wedges should be equally represented, and in individual sealed this is close. As more packs are added to the pool, you start to see some common themes. Abzan is by far the best clan, and almost all of the teams we played against or talked to had an Abzan deck. These decks were usually base Black and Green, but often evenly split across the three colors. The clan tends to play out slow and grindy, so the aggressive white and green cards usually end up in the other two decks. This leads to White/Red aggro, with either blue or black splash, and a Temur deck than is mostly Blue and Green with red splash. I would say 75% of the pools I saw were built Abzan/Mardu/Temur or Abzan/Jeskai/Temur. The only Sultai cards I saw played were splashed into an Abzan deck to take advantage of the powerful blue delve spells. I can’t say for certain that all pools will split this way, but it is the impression I currently have.

We split our pool Abzan/Temur/Jeskai. I played the Abzan deck, which was unimpressive but not terrible. End Hostilities was the only bomb, but it had enough other removal and large enough creatures to play the long game fairly well. The mana was very great: nine non-basic lands made getting the ratios correct very easy. This was probably the worst thing about our sealed pool was that a majority of our lands only went into the one deck. The other two decks played seven non-basic lands combined. The best cards for me were Mardu Skullhunter and Rakshasa’s Secret. I chose to draw first several times against other Abzan decks to take advantage of all the card advantage created by these cards. Haibing played the Temur deck that included Savage Knuckleblade, Clever Impersonator, Rattleclaw Mystic, and two Sagu Mauler. It was missing early removal like Savage Punch, and lacked a way to break through like Roar of the Challenge or Barrage of Boulders. Berni played Jeskai that included the aggressive white cards that didn’t make it into the Abzan deck, and the majority of the red removal. The blue splash was for some morphs, Sage of the Inward Eye, and Jeskai Charm. The deck was fine, but nothing special. It was unfortunate that almost all our great cards ended up in the Temur deck, and our lack of mana fixing took away options from playing different combinations. The only other combination we looked at was BW, UR, and GU based decks. We did mis-build by a few cards. Suspension Field was in the Abzan deck, but should have gone into the Jeskai deck, that would have freed a red removal spell for the Temur deck. The Abzan deck has extra removal in the sideboard like Throttle and Rite of the Serpent that would have been just as good. The Temur deck also should have played at least one of the three Crippling Chill that we left in the sideboard. We chose to play two Force Away instead, but the format wasn’t as fast as we anticipated and the card that didn’t cost us card advantage would have been better.

Our matches were covered by Berni’s updates throughout the day. We were quickly in a 1-2 hole, needing to win out to make day 2. We finished the day at 5-4, well short of the goal. I think most of our opponents had better decks than us, except maybe round 1 and round 4. We played okay for the most part, but did mess up a few turns in round 3 that put us in the 1-2 hole. I was playing against a Temur deck with Sagu Mauler and Pearl Lake Ancient. I won game 1 by forcing him to bounce the Ancient and racing, but lost game 2 when Ancient raced my flying tokens from Abzan Ascendancy. Game 3 was very close. After I cleared the board with End Hostilities, he drew and played Sagu Mauler. At this point, life totals were 18-10 in my favor, and I had Alpine Grizzly in play. My hand was full of useless removal spells, but I drew a Wooly Loxodon that I played face down. On his turn, he attacked. With all the removal in my hand, I chose to take 6 damage, and very likely attack for lethal the next turn if he had follow up blockers. He had no play on his turn, but did have Crippling Chill on the Grizzly to stay alive. I attacked him to 4 life, and another attack from him put me to 6 life. A Force Away on my Loxodon kept him alive another turn, and when I chose to block only with the 6/7, the second Force Away killed me exactly. Blocking earlier would have worked out, but at the time I was worried about possible pump spell. I’m still not sure what the right play was, but I think not double-blocking on the last turn was definitely a mistake.

So even though the main event was a disappointment, the weekend was still a blast. That is the best thing about team events. They are tons of fun, win or lose. When you are winning at an individual event, you experience it alone, as most of your friends are probably not losing. Similarly, when you lose at an individual event, people will listen to your story, but they don’t really care. At a team event, you get to share in the thrill of victory, and commiserate in defeat. Combined this with two other players that are always ready to side draft, since you have to drop at the same time, and you get a recipe for a great weekend. The GP was very smoothly run. It was much smoother than the last team GP I attended. I was worried that the rounds would take forever as they often do at team events, but it moved at a reasonable enough pace. 

I had a great time at GP Nashville despite a poor finish. Thanks to Pat’s Games for sponsoring us, and to all the support we got from the people back home. Also thanks to Haibing Hu and Robert Berni for being awesome teammates.  Also congrats to Mabry-Lavender-Ho team for finishing in the money! 

Old PTQ Reports Part 2

The second PTQ report comes from Mirrodin-Darksteel Sealed deck tournament in Austin in 2004. This was my 4th PTQ top 8 in a year time span. I guess I was better at the game than I remember?



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San Diego is in the country, so of course you have to work hard to qualify. It's an easy trip.

I went to Austin late Thursday night after the type 2 tournament. We arrived around 330 am Friday morning, went to IHOP and stuff. Friday was a hang out day, and I got to see all my friends who sold out and went to UT.

Saturday morning was the most beautiful day ever. It had snowed overnight, and now the sun was out. Driving around the snow was melting off the hood of my car and flying up into my windshield. It was really cool.

When we got to the tournament, it looked like the snow had kept some of the other out of towners from showing up. There was only 61 people there, and the quality of competition was slightly lacking. I know for a fact some of my friends got in an accident just south of Austin on their way and missed the tournament, how unfortunate.

The deck I opened was pretty poor I think, I didn't pay too much attention because I was hoping I wouldn't get it back. Luckily, i got a ridiculous deck passed to me. Here is what I played:

Island x6

Plains x6

Swamp

Vault of Whispers

Arrest

Blinding Beam

Raise the Alarm

Neurok Spy

Thirst for Knowledge

Terror

Aether Spellbomb

Clockwork Condor

Crystal Shard

Frogmite

Gold Myr

Isochron Scepter

Leaden Myr

Soldier Replica

Wizard Replica

Pteron Ghost x2

Test of Faith

Quicksilver Behemoth

Vedalken Engineer

Echoing Decay

Arcbound Stinger

Razor Golem

Specter’s Shroud

Spire Golem

Vulshok Morningstar

Notable sideboard cards included Goblin Dirigible, Yotian Soldier, and Goblin Replica. If I could do it again, I wouldn't play the engineer and would add in Scavenging Scarab and some more black mana. However, I was really happy. This is the kind of deck I like to play: cheap creatures and blinding beams. The rinky dink strategy. The nickel and dime strategy. The stealing blinds strategy.

Round 1 - Mike Lynch

He is playing black green and he mentions having 18 lands. 18 lands?!?! Thats 4 more than I am playing. Mirrodin is all about the really low land counts and it shows. both games I stop at 4 lands and deal with hes few threats then win. One game involves scepter-raise the alarm. Not much to say, my deck was a lot better.

1-0 2-0

Round 2 - David Cerda

David is playing green something, I don't remember. I do remember that he is one of two opponents to ever play artifact removal against me, creeping molding my crystal shard in the first 2 games which we split. Game 3 he stalls on lands and my 1/1's get in some beats. Eventually he gets out empyrial plate and equips, but i have the blinding beam for just enough.

2-0 4-1

Round 3 - Steven Livingston

Steven is a good player and he beat me last time I was in Austin. This was going to be tough. Mulliganing to 5 didn't help either. I get some early beats, and my Pteron Ghosts are getting through unblocked. One of them stays back to block a turn, and then has a test of faith, and then is much bigger allowing me to win the race. 5 card hand wins. Game 2 we trade early dudes, then i make a mistake and attack after arresting his bonesplitter elf replica. I forgot he could move the bonesplitter to his myr and attack, so I take 2 more than i should have. This turns out to be crucial as right when I thirst into total gas, he draws the last land he needs to fireball me. Game 3 I once again start the beatdown, and he has to fireball to stabilize. Eventually I run out of gas, but my Spire Golem is holding his team off. We sit for a few turns when he maybe should of been attacking with dirigible, maybe not, but time is called and he is 1 point short of killing me and decides to play i! t safe and stay back in case i have something. All I have is lands, so it is a draw.

2-0-1 5-2-1

Round 4 - Paul M Hagan

Game 1 he is land screwed, so my cheap beat sticks do 20 really quick. Game 2 he mulligans to 4. And he lost. Coincidence?

3-0-1 7-2-1

Round 5 - Damien W Mayfield

Game 1 I keep a 5 land, myr, crystal shard hand. I draw 3 more land and only 1 more creature, and I can't keep up. Game 2 my deck plays like it does, and doesn't meet too much resistance. Game 3 I play some early fliers, and he has turn 3 Warhammer. If you know me, you know I love to race Warhammer, and without any artifact removal, it looked like i would have to. I put spectral Shroud on a flier and he discards land. Then he plays Wand of the Elements. Ok, this might be tricky. Luckily, I have crystal shard, and after he discards another land, i play some more guys for more pressure. He plays Myr Enforcer, which i bounce on my turn with Aether Spellbomb, then attack with the team. Then he plays Spikeshot, and it looks like he might gain control. Unfortunately for him, he has to go to my dome because i can bounce any of my guys with crystal shard if he tries to get them. Anyway it turns out he taps out somewhere, i have raise the alarm, he kills my condor with spikeshot, i attack him down to 3 after sharding his blockers, then cast the 2nd ability only of blinding beam to keep the spikeshot down. He can only play 2 blockers, and i have 5 dudes, so i get just enough and notch another win vs. the big dumb elephant.

4-0-1 9-3-1

Round 6 - Alex Duran ID

We draw because there is no reason to play really with random top 8 seating, and I am exhausted after racing warhammer.

4-0-2

Basically my top 8 draft boiled down to my first pick. The relevant cards were Bosh, Iron Golem, Viridian Shaman, and Myr Enforcer. The guy to my right seemed kinda random, so I didn't want to take the Shaman in case he went green. Bosh is terrible if you are like me and play 14 lands as much as possible. So I took myr enforcer hoping to put Jeff Meyerson to my left in green and then draft affinity. But somehow he doesn't take the shaman, and instead takes bosh, and we end up in the exact same colors. Looking over the deck lists, it seems that whoever got the shaman didn't play it. And i got a lot of late green picks, meaning i probably screwed this one up. Oh well. I think Jason Krysak had a good point though. How can you take Bosh, and pass Altar of Shadows?

Deck lists are here http://www.ehevents.com/eh2003/articles/article_00034.asp

My deck isn't really as bad as it says, i think my registration sheet may have been hard to read because i kept messing up.

Island x5 *

Swamp x4 *

Mountain x2 *

Tree of Tales

Vault of Whispers

Mirrodin’s Core

Neurok Spy x2

Thoughtcast x2

Moriok Scavenger

Woebearer

Electrostatic Bolt

Frogmite

Goblin Replica

Iron Myr x2

Lifespark Spellbomb

Mask of Memory

Myr Enforcer

Sunbeam Spellbomb

Vulshok Gauntlets

Wizard Replica

Psychic Overload

Nim Abomination

Scavenging Scarab

Echoing Ruin

Arcbound Bruiser

Arcbound Stinger x2

Genesis Chamber

This is what i really played, and I never drew my 3rd pick mask of memory, and well, my opponents deck was a lot better. Because the guy to his right had never seen the set before. Both sets. So his deck is pretty yummy, and mine is one step away from being completely weak.

Anyway, I lost in 2 quick games, despite how slow I was playing to make it last. But I had a good time, and learned a lot.

Maybe next time I can make the final push in the top 8, and not have to play mirrodin sealed again.