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.

Grand Prix Denver Report *5th Place*

I always have more to say when I do well. Success means perhaps I have something useful to share, or perhaps its a way to hold on to the glory for just a bit longer.

The Secret to Team Events

The biggest impact to your success in team events is choosing your teammates. I know this may seem obvious but it doesn't get brought up much. Clearly to have the best chance of success you want to have the best teammates possible. There are a bunch of factors that go into this process, and much of it is navigating complicated social dynamics that even I am no expert in. If success at a team event is important to you, find the best players you can that are also looking for success at the team event. My friend Jack Dobbin put on a clinic in this regard at GP Denver. He picked up members of the last two domestic Team Limited Grand Prix winning teams (Jack is no slouch either), and they cruised to an easy victory only losing one match on the weekend. 

One thing I keep in mind for team events is managing the personalities of the teammates. I'm very easy going and can get along with almost anyone, but many of the people I want to team with aren't quite the same. If someone on your team doesn't want to team with the third person, you have to pick between the two. It is not worth it to have that potential conflict there for 14+ rounds. Maybe this means teaming with neither person, no matter how good you think they are or how much chance for success they will add to your team.

For this event I was lucky I could have both Will Lowry and Collin Rountree on my team. I get along great with both of them, and while many others might not get along with them all the time, they respect and like each other enough that I knew it would work out. We teamed before at a Team Constructed SCG Open, but Team Limited is a different animal where we actually need to be on the same page strategically.

Guilds of Ravnica Team Sealed

We did two practice Team Sealed during prerelease weekend, and I built many simulated pools on the various websites that try to do this. We wanted to have one person being the "architect" of the pool, with the other two people giving feedback on the decks. For our team, Will would be the architect, Collin would give feedback for the Dimir deck, and I would give feedback for the Boros deck. My other duty is to make sure the right player is playing the right deck. Most of the time this means I play Boros, but I considered all the options before we submitted the lists.

Because of the guilds, team sealed for GRN is easier than most sets. In just about every pool there will be a Dimir deck and a Boros deck. I saw one pool that didn't end up with Boros, and every pool had Dimir or UBx. The not-so-secret consensus is that Golgari is by far the worst of the guilds. We didn't think Selesnya was much better. Many teams tried to avoid the green cards by playing Dimir (sometimes splashing the good GB cards), Boros (could include Naya), and Izzet, but sometimes the colors just weren't deep enough or the green cards were too strong.

Our strategy was to find a way to win with the green decks. There are not many easy ways to do this. The simplest strategy is to get paired vs the opposing Boros deck and hope it's weak enough to take down with larger creatures. Another strategy is to open some incredible rares. A third strategy might be to do something weird like splashing red in Golgari to play Cosmotronic Wave. All of these were on the table and it was up to Will to figure out what gave the green deck the best chance to win if we had to play green cards.

Our Event

Our first pool made winning with green very clear: we had two Find // Finality. The Boros deck was a bit weak without any rares, but had two Truefire Captain. The Dimir deck splashed red for the Izzet cards we weren't playing and included 10 gates and Guild Summit. I took the Boros, Collin played Grixis, and Will played Golgari.

We went 7-1 on day 1. We were very fortunate our losses were spread out correctly. Collin started 4-0 but finished 0-4. I started 1-3 but finished 4-0. Will went 6-2. My personal highlight was hitting my 1 out Cosmotronic Wave in game 3 of round 8 to not be dead to an army of X/1s, and then having my opponent brick on the next 5 drawsteps while I killed him with a lone Skyknight Legionairre. 

Our second pool had a much better Boros deck. It ended up with Light of the Legion, Venerated Loxodon, Tajic, and Runaway Steamkin for rares. We had a good Dimir deck, but all the good cards were single color Blue or Black. We tried splitting White for Selesnya but couldn't find a build we liked. We then split the Blue and Black. The Golgari deck had 3x Dead Weight and multiple early game threats to actually put pressure on the opponent. The Izzet deck was the weakest but splashed Black for Etrata and Artful Takedown, and green for Vivid Revial (and Chamber Sentry) to have a strong lategame. Double Chemister's Insight provided additional card advantage. I assigned Will to the Blue deck and Collin to the Golgari deck, and once again I was on the Boros cards.

My deck was incredible and I went 5-1, only losing to an Izzet deck that Quasiduplicated a Murmuring Mystic. Collin was 4-2 and Will went 3-3. Our losses didn't quite line up as well as before, and we finished the day 4-2 when both Collin and Will lost after I easily dispatched my opponet while playing for top 4. 

Last Place

It's very rare to play an entire tournament while still in contention to win the event. This was a nice experience where up until the final game we still had a chance to win the GP. When you get knocked out of contention early but still have other prizes to play for that may or may not be important to you personally, it can be hard to have your head in the game to play those final rounds. We didn't have to experience that at all, but it did make the sting of losing feel a bit harsher. I remember reading a quote from someone at a World Championship many many years ago that described getting 10th place as "a blur of wins but somehow a disappointment". I understand that feeling now. 

It's also hard to reflect on this event at a personal level. In the three matches we lost, I won my personal match twice. The other time we all lost in very quick fashion. When I think back, it's hard to find something I could have done to give us a better chance. Losing round 14 was basically losing in the finals of a PTQ, or losing in top 4 of RPTQ. Basically last place if the goal is to make it to the Pro Tour. But we did end up with $700 each (it's also very rare to play a Magic event and turn a profit, especially one you fly to). And I got the points I needed to be Bronze (which isn't really anything for me anymore anyway, but I guess I did it.)

It had been almost 4 years since I had last played Team Limited, and I really don't know why I haven't played more. I really enjoyed it, especially with the two people I teamed with. I'll be looking to play again in the future, hopefully sooner than 4 years from now.

Thanks,

Ty

Aether Vial

Throughout my Magic career, I have played many decks with Aether Vial. It is one of the cards I enjoy playing with the most. I played it when it was first printed in Affinity. I played it in Extended and Legacy Goblins. I played it in Merfolk and Death and Taxes. I've recently been playing it in Spirits and Humans. Fourteen years of playing this card and I thought I knew all there was to know about it.

I was wrong.

A 2004 era Goblins deck

This past week I've learned two things about the card that changed the way I think about it.

One-Drops with Aether Vial

The first piece of new information came from my favorite Magic player when I first started playing competitively, Jeff Cunningham. In his article about the top tier of Modern, he put forth a list with two copies of Thraben Inpsector in addition to the four copies each of Champion of the Parish and Noble Hierarch. In his words: "The Thraben Inspectors are included because I think standard builds of the deck are short on one-drops - this is because maximizing Aether Vial requires you to have another one-drop (besides itself) to play on Turn 2, and so it effectively doesn't count as a one-drop."

This seems fairly straight-forward and obvious, but felt like a revelation. Because Vial requires such a large portion of the deck to be creatures to be effective, the decks that play is are historically fairly aggressive. However many of these lists don't play more than four one-drops to vial in. Merfolk, Death and Taxes, Spirts, and even Legacy Goblins rarely play more than eight one-drops at most.  This is largely because the main strength of vial is in its repeated Sol Ring activations with two or three (or more) counters.

Humans plays a bit more aggressively than these other decks, and a card like Thalia's Lieutenant incentivises you to put as many creatures onto the battlefield before you deploy it. More one-drops in Humans is likely more correct than fewer. As Thraben Inspector also provides the late game card advantage you need to continue to take advantage of Aether Vial, its the perfect compliment one-drop.

Some notes here: Mutavault in Merfolk acts as a one-drop (or zero-drop) that makes the deck function with adequate aggression. Also the requirement for late game card drawing is likely why we are seeing the increased play of the card Horizon Canopy. Legacy DnT has Stoneforge Mystic and Recruiter of the Guard and therefore doesn't need as many copies.

With this knowledge, I played Humans at a PPTQ in Houston. I lost in the top 4 due to a poor mulligan decision, but overall I was very happy with the deck. It will be something I'll consider playing again in the future.

How many Aether Vial do you play?

The answer is obviously 4, right? Well, maybe not. Ondrej Strasky made the top 8 of GP Prague with a Bant Spirits deck sporting only 3 copies of Aether Vial.  It has been very interesting to look at the reasons behind the number.

Strasky's GP Prague Top 8 Decklist

The divide between UW Spirits with Aether Vial and Bant Spirits with Noble Hierarch has come down to a few key factors. Collected Company is a great card in conjunction with Spell Queller, but requires a bit more mana sources and a third color. Noble Hierarch solves those problems, but it is much more fragile than Aether Vial. You cannot keep one-land Hierarch hand with Spirits the same way you can keep one-land Vial hands. Also, the interaction between Phantasmal Image and Collected Company is not ideal, so you will have fewer instances of double Drogskol Captain in Bant despite what would seem to be more. 

I've preferred the UW version, largely because of my love of Vial. This Strasky version plays both Vial and Noble. In additon to Mausoleum Wanderer, the deck now has 11 solid turn one plays. The issue with running both is the amount of creatures required to play Collected Company.

The other Bant deck in the top 8 played 31 creatures. Frank Karsten set the minimum at about 22 creatures, though you clearly want as many as possible. What the Strasky list has decided on is that he wants 28 creatures (22 of which are non-Noble non-Image). With the requirements of 21 lands and 4 Path to Exile, that only leaves room for three Aether Vial. This also helps alleviate the problem of drawing multiple Vials when you don't need them.

One interesting thought: if the numbers you want are 21 land, 28 creatures, and 4 Company 4 Path, is the deck better at 3 Vials and 60 cards, or 4 Vials and 61 cards? Could this be a time to play more than 60 in order to get the right ratios for Collected Company? That will be something that may be worth looking into.

Old Dog, New Tricks

What this week has shown me is that you can still have success in Magic by questioning your assumptions about everything. I thought I knew it all about Vial, but I'm excited to try these new things in different decks. I had decided to focus on Humans since I felt it was a bit better than Spirits overall, but with the success of Spirits at the GP and these new innovations, I may return to Spell Queller and Co. for my upcoming PPTQs.

Thanks,

Ty