The Medium Guide to Big Magic Tournaments (part 3)

This is part three of a multiple article series. The first article covered game-play improvements and suggestions. The second article covers some meta decisions about how to do well at tournaments. Part three will cover logistical and financial-ish suggestions. Buckle in kids, this one’s going to be weird.

Which tournament should I play?

Efficient Construction

The one that you find the most fun! Silly goose! Always have fun playing magic!

Alright, having gotten that out of the way, there are a lot of choices between events nowadays. You can GP or MCQ to try and qual for the MC, or there are plenty of sides that are usually slightly easier and possibly more fun events. For myself, I did rough calculations of what my probability of qualifying for the pro tour is for each type of event (with different assumed win rates) to inform myself of what I should prioritize as a player. Note that these are based on a hyper-geometric calculator with a population size of 1000 that I am drawing from (no replacement) based on my proposed win rate (for a 50% win rate I’d have a population of 500 win and 500 loss) for a number of rounds equal to tournament size and a required number of wins equal to the normal number required (13-2 for a gp for example, x-1-1 for an ptq/mcq, etc). This is not an exhaustive or precise mathematical model; these are just rough rules of thumb that I played with to see if my intuitions were correct. I’m sure someone reading this is already frothing at the mouth to tell me my math is wrong; too late, I already know it’s wrong, please give me my recommended daily serving of salt in the comments below. In the table below are event type (with assumed record required to qualify).

Win %GP (13-2) GP PTQ (8-0) Local PTQ (10-1) Local PTQ (9-1)
50% 0.35% 0.38% 0.56% 1.04%
55% 1% 0.82% 1.35% 2.3%
60% 2.6% 1.6% 3% 4.6%
66% 7% 3.5% 6.8% 9.5%

This supports what I had already kind of assumed. Small local MCQ’s give the best value. 8 rounder MCQ’s are about comparable to a GP, and the GP MCQ’s where you have to go undefeated give the lowest percentages for actually qualifying. 

Come physically prepared to tournaments

Prepare // Fight

Amusingly, some of the more highly respected pros I have played against have been the most flagrant violators of this rule. The biggest borrowers of dice, playmatless, without their own lands or sleeves, often seem to be the gold pros. To be fair, this is probably their third GP this month, and they’ve been travelling nonstop all year, but it still strikes me as very funny.

Limited GPs do not always have sleeves, deckbox, life pads, and lands for you. Increasingly less so than they used to in fact. Sometimes your neighbor grabs all the swamps you need during deck building. Sometimes vendors are out of extra lifepads. I have a main box with two pockets, one for dice, small pens, board guide, and life pads, the other pocket for my deck and sideboard. I always bring my own lands and sleeves in a separate box that I keep on hand for all limited events. If I forgot my own lands, I grab 15 matching lands of each basic land type out of a land box before my event starts. It’s a small edge, but having lands that match is nice, and keeps you from unintentionally giving away info. Being prepared is the polite thing to do, but more importantly it saves a lot of time and hassle later, and can manifest in small edges.  For sealed pools be sure to sleeve ANY card that might come into your deck (hence why I bring my own sleeves, I might need 80+ to sleeve what I need to). Look at your pool and if there is a secondary deck you might sleeve up, make sure it is ready to go should you need it. Having your own lands also means you can get your deck sleeved up and even draw some sample hands before deck submission is done; this isn’t necessary, but I find it comforting to see a few sample hands with my newly sleeved deck.

How do GP payouts work?

Icatian Moneychanger

This is a question that doesn’t really occur to anyone until they’re deep in day two and realize they don’t really know what’s going on. The ever-changing nature of this means that my advice might be out of date already, but I’ll post what I know now.

I’ll assume that the average GPS is about 1200 people. Assuming these numbers I have observed the following for payouts with the old system. Top 8 is usually X-2 or better, with some X-2’s missing out if the tournament is larger; sometimes X-2-1 sneak in for smaller tournaments. X-3s usually span 9th-20th or so, depending on breakers you could get top 16 or top 32 money. X-4’s usually span through the 64’s and past it, so if you have good breakers you should top 64, but with bad breakers you’ll probably be below. With the new flatter payouts as low as ~200th’ish place I was able to cash with X-5-1 (intentionally drawing the last round in Seattle because we knew we’d be guaranteed prize), with something like 6 X-6 people prizing. Seattle was a larger tournament too, so X-6 might be the standard cutoff for prizes now. The limited portion of GP Vegas similarly put the x-5-1 bracket into the money, while the modern portion payed to x-5 (I know this because friends prized in both of these tournaments). In short, keep playing day two if that 200 bucks is worth it to you and if the tournament is paying that far down. These are mostly guesses, there are calculators out there that might help as well; just don’t rely on them to do breaker math (that’s a whole different article, and one I’m not sure I’m qualified for). Honesty, unless I have a very specific thing to get to, I always play the entirety of a GP day two, previously to collect pro points and mostly to just have fun with other high level players.

When you receive prizes as part of an event, make sure to receive the handout or any other information that you might need. Ask judges if need be; at GPs there is usually a piece of paper they hand out. Wizards pays you via an e-wallet account they make you set up the first time that you receive prize. They will need your account associated with your DCI number to be up to date, or at least have a functional email attached (this was initially an issue with me, as my original DCI had a very dead email associated with it). You will usually receive an email the ~Wednesday the week after the tournament telling you how to setup payment, it can take up to a week longer than this. They’ll want a bank account (I think there are other forms of payment, but this seems easiest) and a blank check to verify. It will usually take 1-2 days for them to verify your account, but then once you are secured you can withdraw the money basically immediately.

Check payouts before you leave

Final Payment

This is similar to some things I said above, but this is worth mentioning again. When I’m playing a magic tournament, I’m pretty much there from beginning to end. This is usually because I am there with friends and will have to wait for them anyway. I have a number of friends with a tendency to go 0-2 drop, or otherwise drop after a loss or two on day two of a GP. The thing about larger tournaments, especially tournaments that Wizards is specifically involved in, is that they tend to pay down further in the standings than you might expect from more local tournaments. RPTQs used to guarantee payouts for nearly every competitor. GP tournaments now pay down to somewhere in the 175-200ish range. This is basically everyone who doesn’t completely bomb on day 2. If you’re playing in side events, make sure you get your promo. In short, just because you’re feeling bad, and grumpy about magic for the day, you should probably at least make sure not to leave free money on the table. Ask a judge if payouts aren’t posted, you just never know.

Be prepared to sleep in adverse conditions

Send to Sleep

This might only be something that happens to me, but I thought I might as well bring it up. Until very recently I would always fly in and out of San Francisco International, with my flight back being a late flight. My late flight would get delayed until the next morning approximately 50% of the time, resulting in me getting in very early in the morning instead. The thing about getting delayed until the next morning is the wonderful decision to have about a 4 hour period of time where you should be sleeping, but aren’t sure if you want to spring for a hotel. For these absurd overnight delays, I just always operate as if I’m going to get stuck at the airport and always have a travel pillow and blanket with me. They do not take up much space, and they’re a life saver if stranded. If you’re staying at a friend’s place or splitting a hotel, they might not have extra pillows and blankets anyway, so it always helps to have your own for backup. On a similar note: magic players have a tendency to snore. I highly recommend ear plugs to have any chance of sleeping if you are sharing a room. I am also partial to an eye mask, since there will always be a player who has to get up too early and probably make a nuisance of themselves with the windows or lights. The eye mask and earplugs are easy to just stick in a pocket of a backpack and forget about, they take up next to 0 space. In short, if you’re looking to travel on the cheap be prepared to sleep in harsh conditions.

Draft chaff is plentiful

Greed

Draft chaff at large tournaments, as well as local game stores, is often left on tables or in designated spots for scavenging. I am often building standard decks for multiple players and have a need for multiple copies of commons/uncommons for standard sets. Similarly, when I was getting back into the game ~6 years ago, I had very little in the way of the commons/uncommons needed to complete my decks. Local shops often carry only a limited supply of chaff. Especially for newer to paper players, or more casual players, where the chaff is more likely to be valuable, I highly recommend being on the lookout for cards headed to the dumpster. They can save a significant amount in tcgplayer mini-purchases and other headaches that add up over time and can be very important for newer players who may not have the resources to fill out the last few pieces of their decks. At Grand Prix these piles can usually be found near the judge stations or land stations or in random piles on tables throughout the tournament hall. Please try not to be a nuisance when going through these piles. Don’t get in the judge’s way, and don’t take cards if it looks like they are marked to be given away for charity. If you find chaff on a table, maybe take the whole pile, keep the pieces you want, and dump the rest off in the designated chaff boxes. Anything to reduce the workload on judges to pick up everyone’s junk is a net positive and I recommend making yourself a boon and not a burden to the judging/event staff.

Pros are still human beings

Human Frailty

Famous pros are people. They are not godlike beings with all the answers. They will not automatically beat you at cards. Depending on the tournament you might even be better prepared then they are; this is especially true in specialty formats like Legacy with fewer events in a year. In short, any player is fallible. When you sit down don’t psych yourself out. Just play like anyone else at your local store. Just like anyone else in sealed, assume they don’t have it until you see it. If anything they might be more susceptible to minor bluffs (attack my 2/2 into your 1/3). Just don’t get into your own head, play like normal and you’ll be fine.

Sidenote: people need space and recuperation time. This probably goes for semi-celebrity players as well. If you would like an autograph or to chat try to keep it polite, to the point, and be willing to move along if it isn’t the right time for them. Maybe don’t glomp them while they’re trying to eat their meal between rounds. Also, the very large crowd around Dana Fischer during rounds has been becoming increasingly absurd. I’m not saying Dana isn’t awesome and doesn’t deserve accolades, I’m just saying we should give her some space to play.

What is that cool box?

Teferi's Puzzle Box

I mentioned previously that I always use a two compartment box for mtg cards. This box also happens to be pretty cool because it has an alteration from one of my favorite artists in the world. I’m not receiving anything in return here, I just think Grichels does an amazing job and thought I’d mention it here. Also I get asked about this a lot and it’s kind of hard to describe what’s up or where to go without a link. So here you go: link. Also keep in mind that all of these alterations are done by hand by a single hardworking lady. Happy to support her. These are mostly found at renaissance festivals, possibly one near you. The deck boxes come up intermittently, so you might have to check her website every once in awhile. The best time for deck boxes is winter when Grichels is not at any Renaissance festivals. For reference, here is my box for the last 5+ years or so.

That more or less rounds out part 3 of my big tournament series. It primarily covered a lot of smaller talking points or things that have been covered in depth elsewhere. This third installment was dangerously close to an mtg finance article, complete with an ad at the end. Please forgive me.

BLACK DETH

DETH’S SERVANT

    So, I haven’t been playing a ton of legacy lately as I was spending a good portion of my magic time preparing for the limited portion of GP Vegas.  However, the last time I did I was able to turn a few heads with an even CRAZIER brew of DETH. For those of you that are in “the know”, read on, for those of you that are soon to be in “the know,” this link is for you. I shall attempt to impart a modicum of wisdom here with the hope that you come away from this enlightened, excited, and above all else, ready to play some DETH’s Servant. What is DETH’s Servant? Well, for an in depth conversation about this deck, the card choices, an overview of the matchups, sideboard and a whole lot of laughs, I would first advise you to listen to Leaving a Legacy .  Jerry Mee and Pat Euglow invited me to come on the show to highlight this particular list. I did, and it was awesome. Have you listened to it yet? I’ll wait…

Here is the link again.  I’m not messing around, you’re going to want to check out that podcast.  

Okay, I think it’s safe to assume that by now you’ve checked out the origin story and listened to the podcast.  We’re now prepared to dive into the depths of DETH. Today’s dive will include the changes I made and why, mulligan decisions and general sideboarding strategies. 


THE ADDITIONS

Why did I add a fourth combo?  Well, aside from my bottomless need for attention, there were also a couple of other legitimate reasons.  First and foremost: what I learned in my initial build was that the more combos I added, the better the deck seemed to get. Keeping this in mind, I decided to add yet another combo and see if the trend continued in a linear fashion or started to pass the apex of the theoretical combo parabola.

 X axis = number of combos           

Y axis = deck performance

The first league I played I was able to secure a 5-0.  This continues to suggest that the graph on the bottom is, in fact, the correct one.  So, it follows that, if I could conceivably cram an infinite number of combos into a 60 card deck, I would never lose.  I am currently working on this theorem, and feel I am close to a breakthrough.  

The next reason has to do with decks that tax.  Eldrazi and Taxes, Death and Taxes, Death and Taxes and Taxes (this is when you are actively being audited by your D&T opponent),lands, mono red prison, you get the idea.  Essentially, I wanted a cheaper combo that wouldn’t be as punished by cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Thorn of Amethyst. I also wanted a viable way to win the game if my opponent resolved a Gaddock Teeg game one with a Wasteland up (which happens more frequently than one might think). Additionally, having another two card combo that can potentially win the game on the spot helps even out the Sneak and Show match up.  Your opponent now has to gamble with Show and Tell if you have even one of the following cards in play: Painter’s Servant, Grindstone, Leyline of the Void, or Helm of Obedience.  

The other addition that I made was Echo of Eons as a one of in the main deck.  My reasoning for this doesn’t amount to much more than these two reasons and in this exact order: I thought it was cool.  Second, I found that in match ups where my opponent thwarted my turn two kill and was grinding me down, I did not have a way to bounce back into the game effectively.  I see my Echo of Eons as the fourth quarter Hail Mary against these long game strategies. However, it is also quite good against any deck that has minimal interaction on your turn.  Does it get stuck in my hand sometimes? Absolutely. This, however, brings me back to the number one reason I decided to run it, which is that it is in fact, very cool. Not much on this Earth beats waiting until your opponent is tapped out, playing your hand, drawing 7, playing another hand and usually just winning on the spot. 

The last change that I made was cutting two duress for two Inquisition of Kozilek.  This was mostly due to a drastic shift in the meta. I was playing against delvers and True Name-Nemesis quite frequently.  I wanted a way to strip early pressure out of my opponent’s hand to allow the deck to draw into its win conditions. The downside to this change is, of course, that inquisition does not hit Force of Will, which is often a primary target. 

MULLIGAN DECISIONS

With any  deck your starting hand and the decisions you make to keep or mull are extremely important.  It is no different here, in fact, I believe it is even more important. It is also a little more complex than most linear decks.  There are hands that are easy to keep, of course. For instance, when you have a turn one kill or a turn two kill, no problem.

This is a turn one kill and an example of those easy keeps I mentioned above.  On the play in game one, my approach is to always jam. You will get blown out by Force of Will from time to time, but you will win way more often.  Sadly, most of the time you will not have a turn one or even turn two kill. Which hands you decide to keep depends greatly on what you are playing against, which makes your game one decisions even more crucial. 

When you play with a linear deck, your deck does a thing, let’s call it X.  When you draw a hand if you think your hand will allow you do X it is a keep, if it does not do X then it is a mulligan.  DETH differs from this in the sense that it is looking to do W,X,Y, or Z. So, when you draw a hand does none of those things it does not mean you should mulligan those hands 100% of the time.  For example, if we think of Leyline/Helm and Painter/Servant, Depths and Stage/Hexmage as two card combos and LED/Ritual/Tutor as a three card combo we can assess our hands in valuations. For instance, here is a sample hand that I kept in the blind against an opponent game one. 

   This hand I can look at as  ⅔ x and ½ y, or ⅔ storm and ½ depths.  What this means is that on my first draw of the game I can draw 12 cards that will complete one of these combos(all copies of LED, Ritual, Stage, Hexmage, and Plunge into Darkness). That is nearly 25%. The disruption can slow down my opponent and help set up my win.  This hand is especially nice because you have a back up plan, go all-in with Depths. It also has potential versatility. If I cast Thoughtseize and I see my opponent is sitting on Wasteland and Knight of the Reliquary I will be looking to complete my storm combo. I may play out my Depths to bait their Wasteland to buy another draw free of pressure and clear the way for my lake of the dead.  As it panned out, this particular opponent was playing UW control and I was able to strip away meaningful cards turn one and two and use Infernal Tutor discarding my hand to LED for Hexmage to attack for 20 on turn 4.

This hand may be an obvious keep as it contains ½ Helm combo, full Depths combo and ⅓ storm combo.  I am only including it here to discuss the power starting with Leyline in play. Not only do we have a good aggressive plan, but beginning the game with Leyline of the Void in play enables much of our deck to function at a much higher efficiency (It is also noteworthy to mention that simply by starting with a Leyline in play you will receive a concession in roughly 4-5 percent of your game ones).  Even if one or both Depths and Stage were swamps, I would likely keep this hand, especially in game one. Leyline of the Void enables our Ill-gotten Gains as well as our Helms and turns them into “your opponent exiles their hand and you get three sweet cards back from your graveyard.”  Even if you get your Helm of Obedience surgically extracted you can still storm off without fear of the FOW once you resolve your first Ill-gotten Gains. As it turned out, this game actually ended on turn three with another 20/20. Let’s look at one more example. 

This is a hand I would ship back.  It only has ⅓ storm. If I knew that I was playing against storm, I would probably keep this, but game one, I would mulligan. 

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how I evaluate hands with DETH.  It is built in such a way (that is without brainstorms, ponders, or any efficient cantrip) to maximize the value of the top card of your deck.  So, if you’re starting hand doesn’t have the win in it, but has varied pieces of your combos, do not despair. As George Michael would tell you, “you gotta have faith.”

SIDEBOARDING

“You must do what you feel is right, of course.” 

  • Obi Wan Kenobi

Sideboarding with DETH can be a tricky endeavor.  There are a few certainties, but many more uncertainties.  For example, against control, I will always bring in Hymn to Tourach. Against elves I will always bring in Toxic Deluge.  Against Mono red Prison I will always bring in Phyrexian Obliterator. Aside from these type of examples the rest of my sideboarding strategy is greatly dependent upon what happened game one and two.  This differs from many sideboard strategies in the sense that I don’t necessarily do the same thing match to match, or even game to game. For instance, if I beat my opponent game one with my Dark Depths combo and they only see cards that could viably be in Turbo Depths, I may lean away from that strategy in game two(especially if they have Wasteland and Karakas), anticipating that my opponent will side heavily into stopping that particular win condition.  If I happen to storm out my opponent game one, I might side out my storm combo completely and lean into my Painter/Grindstone combo with Obliterators for back up. It is a game of cat and mouse. Against control I may side out three or all of my lotus petals on the draw as I want my cards all to impact the game state in a meaningful way, where as I may bring them in on the play in an attempt to win before they can develop their board. My best advice is to think about the game that was just played and consider these factors:

  1. What combo did I win with (if you won)?
  2. What cards did my opponent see (if you lost)?
  3. What combo is my opponent’s deck most vulnerable to?
  4. What strategy are they likely to take against me?  
  5. What do they expect that I will do?

It’s important to remember that as difficult as it can be to sideboard with DETH, it is also difficult to sideboard against.  The benefit of having four distinctive modes to victory is that many of the strategies do not share sideboard cards. Your opponent’s strategy versus storm and Painter/Grindstone, for example, are not going to share many cards.  Make the best decisions you can with the information you gathered during game one and remember that your opponent has some difficult choices to make as well. 

CLOSING REMARKS

  That’s the crash course on DETH’s Servant. If you have any questions or remarks please feel free to ask below in the comment section.  You can also find me on Twitter @traswidden and I am traswidden on twitch.  

The Medium Guide to Big Magic Tournaments (part 2)

This is part two of a multiple article series. The first article covered gameplay improvements and suggestions. This part covers some meta decisions about how to do well at tournaments. Part three will cover logistical suggestions.

Plan to beat the winner’s metagame

Sometimes is feels really bad when you sit down at a legacy tournament and lose to burn repeatedly (your fault for not having win conditions). However, being soft to a deck that is unlikely to perform well is better than being an all-rounder against bad decks. Tobi Henke covered this very well in a recent article, but I think it bears repeating.

The winner’s metagame are the decks that you think are most likely to compose the top tables. These are the decks you want to beat, not the junk that sometimes populates the early rounds of a tournament. This is one of the benefits of having byes at a GP (byes just barely still exist as of this writing). Getting to skip lesser known or lower likelihood of success decks can inform deck decisions and allow you to skip worrying about bad decks. If all the good decks are on 3-4c Energy midrange in Kaladesh standard, you better have a good plan for beating them. Play to win the tournament, don’t put narrow cards in your board to beat the 1% of the field deck that dumpsters you. When you build a sideboard, keep in mind what you are expecting to face in the winners meta and make sure you have a focused plan against them. Don’t devote 10 cards to beating the standard burn matchup, no matter how much you hate losing to it, when burn is 2% of the meta.

This is critically important for a format like modern, especially for those who are new to the format. The tendency is to put very specific answers into their sideboard to deal with their local meta. If you are playing burn and hate infect, play Searing Blood, not Burn the Impure. Searing blood is just as effective against infect in most situations, but is also useful against creature combo decks and other random nonsense you might encounter.

Option a is better than option b, no matter how much you hate infect.

Sometimes one deck is likely to be the most represented deck (*cough* Hogaak *cough*) in the format and it is necessary to devote specific sideboard cards (Leyline of the Void) to beating this strategy. Most of the time in modern it pays to have answers that can be used more widely like Relic of Progenitus, but there are always exceptions. Damping Sphere covers more bases than Molten Rain, etc. There are many articles discussing sideboarding, especially in modern, but I think it is always worth rehashing.

In older formats part of playing to the winner’s meta is also ignoring that some players just “want it more.” Sometimes you’re playing rb reanimator and your round 2 opponent has 10 pieces of yard hate. You should still play reanimator if you think it is the best deck. Some people hate losing to a specific deck and will over-prepare for it. These people will likely feel the burn later in the tournament when they don’t have cards to bring in against other decks. Sometimes you run into them, they have it all, and there’s not much to be done.

If you can, perform focused testing

Jamming modern modo games might be ok for getting the hang of your deck, but at a certain point you need to sit down and focus on the winner’s metagame. I am fortunate enough to have a network of friends who between us can proxy up and test important matchups. Fun fact: you will never get enough reps in with a deck to know for sure the matchup percentages. I would go so far as to say you will never get enough reps with a deck.

Period.

Ever.

Welcome to magic.

Maybe I’m just neurotic. I have certainly never gone into a tournament feeling like I couldn’t have prepared more. There might be people that feel like they have spent enough time on their deck and testing. These people are either very wrong, or have a great deal more time than I do. Point being, we’re going to have to be efficient.

Ludevic's Test Subject

10 game sets with alternating first players can give you a very good feel for what is going on and what is important. The streamer Jeff Hoogland is very good at talking about this. At the end of videos he often loudly proclaims that we ignore the record and focus on how things felt. Mixed feelings around the net regarding Mr. Hoogland notwithstanding, I think that this self- analysis is very important while testing and tuning decks. There is a reason that computers are very bad at magic. I perform my serious testing with individuals (preferably ones who know the deck they are piloting well) and in longer sets. I prefer this be done in paper magic, but an online tool might be faster or easier for some depending on format and individual taste.

Test matchups! Leagues are ok testing but not the best.

Play good decks

I love bad combo decks (Narset cannon and meandeck tendrils are particular favorites). I play them often at weekly tournaments so that I get it out of my system and don’t play bad decks at big events. The fact that neo-griselbrand straddles this line in modern could lead to significant shenanigans down the road and is amusing to me.

Arclight Phoenix

There are many reasons people play bad decks. Comfort, the lolz, the burning need to show how cool you are (Antony Benedetti is particularly cool). The fact is that there is a hive mind of magic online players that are actively trying their darndest to break the game and get all the moneys. The result is that the creme of the crop tend to rise up after they’ve been discovered.

Tangent: The “after they’ve been discovered” bit is important here. I’m of the opinion that the modo hive mind acts similarly to machine learning. As Hari Seldon might say, humans in groups are easy to predict. Everyone tries everything over enough time (infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, etc.) and as a result the best decks tend to be the most played decks over time. I recommend looking into basic machine learning/neural net stuff (cool mario link here). I’ll probably devote an entire article to this some time in the future. The thing about taking a lot of inputs (players and decks) and jamming them into a few metrics for success (published lists), is that they will tend to wander off into local maxima. That is, the meta-magician is very good at tuning decks, and not so good at discovering them. This goes along with Patrick Chapin’s information cascades article. We humans tend to follow, not invent.

Temporal Cascade

Anyway, modo is a very good deck-tuning machine and a so-so deck-finding machine. I am willing to bet that there are a very large number of very good decks out there that haven’t been discovered yet. Recall how the best versions of death’s shadow weren’t even discovered until gitaxian probe was banned. The problem is that you are incredibly unlikely to find and tune one of these mythical hidden best decks. If Matt Nass were given an infinite amount of time to test older formats I’m sure he could develop an entirely different ecosystem of insane combo decks that would be stronger than our current meta (I like to call this the infinite Nasty theorem).

Most of us aren’t Matt Nass or Patrick Chapin and we don’t have infinite time. We also largely don’t have massive pro teams bolstering our every whim. The result is that we need a good deck to play and we probably don’t have much time. Don’t play bad decks. Play meta decks and try to learn them and tune them in the time you have. You don’t always have to play the Gaak, but play something that already exists and has a reasonable plan against it. Play brainstorm in Legacy, play linear in modern, and play midrange (probably) in standard.

Your brew is bad. Keep tuning it, play it at weeklies and have fun. Maybe at some point it will be less bad. If your goal is to maximize win percentages, play a meta deck.

Always have a sideboard guide

It is important to know how you plan to sideboard, this ensures that your sideboard makes sense and that your outs and ins map correctly. For me, the hardest part is deciding which things need to come out of my deck. Especially for dedicated combo decks, it is very hard to determine how much of the deck you can remove before it ceases to function correctly. My first step is usually to find someone else’s guide, because developing my own takes many hours of additional time that I often do not have. If you are lucky enough to know an experienced pilot, talking through their plans is always better than a stale guide that can be found online. A sideboard guide as a tool helps determine how many cards are needed for a matchup while still understanding what the plan is against certain decks.

Leyline of the Void

The hardest decks for me are midrange decks (especially in standard). Plans for midrange decks usually are not obvious because you are altering your deck to perform a specific role. Midrange mirrors especially can be particularly nuanced. During the reign of mardu vehicles, for example, each mardu deck was trying to go over the top of the others, but some of the threats were so hard to deal with (scrapheap scrounger) that going under one another was a completely viable option, especially on the play. No two players agreed on sideboarding choices and trying to anticipate what role the other person was taking could be critical for victory.

In limited, while you may not have a specific plan, you should have a general idea what the weakest cards in your deck are as well as your strongest sideboard options. In extreme cases, especially in sealed, it is correct to have a whole other deck sleeved up and ready to swap out. The tendency for many players is to not bother with boarding too much in limited, but this leaves a lot of percentage points on the table. In limited, every deck is a midrange deck and you should be adjusting your role according to how it matches up to other midrange decks. Know your role and have a plan. You don’t even have to write down the plan in limited, just try not to forget that you have disenchants in your pool. I find that having it written down helps me know what I think I should be doing and makes it easier for me to improvise in the actual tournament itself.

Naturalize

There are many articles that are against sideboard guides. These all make excellent points. Someone else’s guide implemented without any thought is probably out of date and does not account for changes. Using guides as rote also keeps you from making important changes on the fly that are often needed for slight variations in decks. The important part is to start with a guide for structure and to aide in understanding. From there it is important to move forward from the guide as you make changes and updates, and be willing to mix things up on the fly depending on how your opponents might differ from the norm.

For me, guides are a very important jumping off point for understanding a deck quickly and a great tool for not having to always remember my own sideboard plan. They give structure to help aide in understanding.

Don’t hand out free information

A magic player’s second main hobby is complaining about magic. Have you ever had an opponent come to the round complaining about their last match and basically tell you what they’re playing? I don’t recommend doing that. Having a conversation with your opponent is part of the fun of the magic tournament experience. Loudly proclaiming bad beat stories to strangers is not the best way to make friends and can lead to accidentally giving away information. It is also obnoxious. Also, be mindful of how you hold your cards. As a taller player I can sometimes see some of my opponents’ cards. When I can see my opponents’ cards I try to inform them immediately, but it is still up to them to hold cards in a way that I can’t see them. Sloppy shuffling also tends to reveal cards unnecessarily. Watch how you shuffle, maybe have a friend give you an outside opinion. In team tournaments it can be very easy for the other team to see cards in your deck while you shuffle; make sure to shuffle away from opponents.

Disinformation Campaign

Try to use a card case that doesn’t flash the world every time you take your cards out. The clear cases, or the ones that open from the top are the worst offenders. I like having flaps and other things that I can hide cards behind as I take things out. This also is helpful for sideboarding behind your case to keep the number of cards going in and out secret.

Not recommended

Try to keep composed while drawing cards. If you can, know what cards you could draw and what you would do with them if you do. Basically, don’t just slump in the chair every time you draw a land, and jump out of the chair every time you draw a bomb. You don’t have to perfectly control your tells, but being mindful of what you’re doing is useful, especially if you can turn some of your body language into a bluff.

Have a plan to win

LSV is very good about this and talks about it in depth, so I won’t go over it too much. This is especially relevant when way behind in a game. As you are being cut out of outs and things are looking very grim, take a minute to think of what needs to happen in order to win. If you need the top of your deck to be precisely lightning bolt, play in a way such that it is true. If you need your opponent to brick, and you need runner-runner pump spells to kill with your infect creature before they kill you, make sure that you are set up so that those pump spells are most likely to kill. If you are way ahead and can only lose to a haste creature in limited, keep a blocker back to not lose if it doesn’t affect your clock. In short, don’t play cards at random, especially when way ahead or way behind, visualize what it takes to win and play towards that end.

Brilliant Plan

Thus ends additional ramblings. The Isaac Asimov reference was my favorite one probably.

On a fun note. I just won the MCQ for Richmond for the bay area (northern CA) playing the Gaak. Turns out that deck is busted, who knew? I hope those that were in Vegas had fun and maybe played the gaak for the last time.

Am I a dumb jerkface who doesn’t know anything? Comment below, I welcome your hate. I welcome your love and questions even more, also please put those below. See you next time.

The Last Hogaak Guide: How to Gaak in Vegas

Gaak / Gaak’d [Verb][i] Informal : To Abuse graveyard synergies in conjunction with Vengevine and/or Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to create an Obscene amount of power in a single turn; usually between 12 and 20, spread across 3 – 7 creatures. In Conjunction: Got Gaak’d; Gaak’d em, getting Gaak’d.

I cast a Nihil Spellbomb on my first turn and still got Gaak’d. 

 Force of Vigor allowed me to Gaak on my turn 2 while removing their leyline on turn 1

Magic Fest Las Vegas is the largest tournament in North America every year.  Featuring 2 main events, a handful of unique and Vegas-exclusive events, dozens of artists, cosplayers, and more, Magic in Sin City is always one for the books.  This year’s Modern main event will almost certainly be the last chance you have to cast Hogaak, the Arisen Necropolis , which you should if your intentions are to take it down.  

I don’t feel that I need to convince anyone on Hogaak’s power…but just in case you don’t fully understand all the reasons why this deck should not exist:

Hogaak is the first modern deck we have seen in a long time that is both doing the most powerful, consistent thing and can shove through most sideboard cards.  The shell of 14+ spells that bin multiple cards at a time mean that “soft hate” cards like Nihil Spellbomb , Ravenous Trap , and Surgical Extraction are low impact.  Similar to flashback spells, cards like Gravecrawler and Hogaak really take advantage of how priority works by not granting the opponent a window to take action between entering and leaving the graveyard.  Half the time I see a Ravenous Trap in a Phoenix player’s hand, it either does not come online until it is too late or punishes a loose Hogaak player that could have given up 1-2 power or sequenced better to play around it.  

When Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze end up not being enough to check the graveyard, most decks have no choice but to play a “hard hate” graveyard card like Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace , or Yixlid Jailer .  Normally this is needed as at least a 4-of if not more through a split between hard and soft hate because of how you basically need you board card in your opening hand. The resilience of Hogaak to soft hate allows the deck to only worry about hard hate.  As a result the deck can play the best possible answers to these cards and simply ignore basically everything else.  

Force of Vigor is one of the most powerful cards for green, proactive strategies that Modern has ever seen.  This 0 mana play not only answers a Turn 1 leyline, but multiple Leylines. Picking off an additional board card or trinket such as an Aether Vial or Expedition Map can be quite impactful since most decks are required to keep anemic hands that contain lands and a sideboard card.  Everything about this card is insane; costing 0 mana rather than 1 is more of a difference than you might think. Forcing a Leyline in response to a Turn 1 Thoughtseize is one of the many spots where this card outperforms previous options like Nature’s Claim .  This is not a factor on the play of course, but the 1 mana can quite often be the difference from Gaaking on turn 2 and turn 3. Finally this card functions as multiple removal spells in board games against prison and chalice strategies. Converting this and an extra Satyr Wayfinder into an answer to multiple bridges on turn 4 onward is something unique that most playable board cards cannot do.  Force of vigor has not existed long enough to prove its merit outside of this deck, but it has great applications in big mana decks like Amulet, Titanshift, and Tron as an answer to blood moon that does not require a basic.  

Some people really do not want to lose to Hogaak and play either an excessive amount of hate or just jam 4 Leyline where you would not expect to see it.   Although you could board in Force of Vigor against Humans and Storm as a hedge, the deck’s engine is close to a mediocre zoo deck on stats alone. Most hands with multiple Gravecrawlers and a Lightning Axe can normally cross the finish line by themselves when against a mountain of grave hate or see all your payoff creatures stripped by a few Surgical Extractions.  In some matchups like UW control and Red Prowess, zoo beats becomes your primary game plan. Celestial Colonnade decks have a very hard time dealing with recurring threats; Hogaak and Vengevine basically serve as a Spellskite to protect your Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts from Path to Exile . Similarly Mono-Red Phoenix and Prowess can have up to 4 Surgical Extractions and can be raced when either they run out of creatures or draw too many cards that do not affect the board.  

I had the pleasure to cast Hogaak at Mythic Championship Barcelona this summer and played against Leyline of the Void decks in 7 of my 10 matches.  Out of those 7 I went 4-3 and won a total of 4 games having never attacked with a Hogaak or Vengevine. One of these losses were a result of my opponent missing their second land drop until turn 4 but a normal graveyard deck like Dredge really has no way to capitalize on something like that if they open with an unanswered board card.  Carrion Feeder can get big. Wayfinder helps you cast Vengevine which on an open board hits hard. Gravecrawler is a Savannah lion with upside. This is an Aggro-Combo deck at its core and can execute either plan very well.       

The List:

Here’s What I would play at Vegas this weeekend

Disclaimer:  At least 30 of the spell slots are consensus in most lists, leaving 10 up in the air.  I would advise you not to put too much weight on a particular list doing well since the 10 flex slots are most likely not what won the pilot most of their games.  You could probably 3-2 or 4-1 a league if you put 10 cards from your last Modern Horizons draft in these slots. That being said, after playing a few hundred matches with a dozen or so configurations and consulting with a few friends I trust, I feel very confident in my choices.  

The Core:

Almost every list begins with these 32 cards and I would not try to cut any of these.  Some of these get worse post board but in a world where everyone and their mother is playing Leyline of the Void you are almost always boarding in 6+ cards.  It is important to remember that you are playing the strongest and most consistent deck legal (somehow) in Modern. This means that if both you and your opponent execute their gameplan, gaaking will likely go over the top.   

The Flex Slots:

2 Golgari Thug – Yes this card is Terrible most matchups after game 1.  That’s ok. As mentioned before this deck boards a lot of cards in a lot of matchups.  I dismissed this card forever in my testing and did not end up playing it in Barcelona.  I initially thought this card was a velocity card until I played with it. Thug actually functions as a consistency slot and is comparable to a 5th and 6th wayfinder that you can actually find from a wayfinder.  I thought Thug would only be good in the mirror because it allows you to consistently recast Hogaak after they trade off. As mentioned before, if you can successfully Gaak there’s almost nothing playable in modern that will stop you game 1. After turn 3, most spots you would draw a Satyr Wayfinder given the option; this is exactly that, a 2 mana 1/1 that mills 4 cards.  Most hands or flips containing a Thug have a near-guarantee that you can Gaak by the third turn.

3 Insolent Neonate – Anyone that tells you this card is bad or does nothing has likely not tested it for themselves.  Neonate functions as a pseudo Mishra’s Bauble , having mana small effects and synergies that add up to a well deserved slot.   Most game 1s Neonate serves as a cycling Show and Tell , putting a Bloodghast, Vengevine, or Hogaak into play from your hand. Neonate also bins a convenient 5 cards in conjunction with Golgari Thug and helps you reach a critical mass of discard outlets.

 Burn and Mono-Red Phoenix are extremely popular choices right now because of how well they can punish Hogaak when they miss on their flips and lootings and can burn you out before you untap with your 16 power of Hogaak, Vengevines, and x/1s .  Neonate absorbing a chump block on a prowess creature, similar to Sakura Tribe-Elder , can often be the difference between untapping and not. Postboard elsewhere, Neonate is a proactive play to make on turn 1 when you expect to cast either a Trophy or Force of Vigor on turn 2.  

20 Lands / Dryad Arbor – I think of this more as a 19 Land deck, counting Dryad Arbor as a spell.  It’s nice to have a third fetchable green source but the “land count” in this deck really refers to your black source count.  Dryad Arbor Really does it all.  At surface value this card lets your fetches convoke Hogaak and surprises a counter on carrion feeder.  I played Dryad Arbor in my list in Barcelona, which was an open decklist event, and the card still proved worthy without the surprise element.  Most matches postboard are about sticking a hogaak through whatever hate the opponent may have; Dryad arbor allows your fetches to count for 2 mana towards Hogaak as opposed to 1 which is very relevant when functioning on low resources.  

Because of how priority works in magic Arbor’s presence alone puts the opponent into awkward spots anytime you fetch with a creature in play. This leads to great exchanges for you such as bolting/pushing gravecrawlers and stitcher’s suppliers just to avoid getting Gaak’d.  Anyone who has played Bogles or Infect probably understands all the additional value the card such as converting useless fetches (hello Satyr Wayfinder) and a timely chump block or ambush attacker on a planeswalker. Arbor’s presence also allows you to set up specific plays or traps or  scenarios. One example of this is where you fetch against a Spellbomb or Crypt; If they do not respond you Gaak them and if they do you get a normal land and play a Supplier or Wayfinder to gaak them anyways.

Dryad Arbor does have a cost of playing less black fetches.  If this is something you are worried about, you can play a 2/2 split of Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire.

3 Lightning Axe, No Assassin’s Trophy – Similar to Neonate, Axe helps reach a critical mass of discard outlets while being both a proactive and reactive play.  Humans will definitely be a top 3 deck at Vegas and Axe can win you a race, save your looting from a Kitesail Freebooter , or kill a Phantasmal Image on Hogaak.  When Lightning Axe is a dead card it has a floor of either popping your suppliers or saving a creature from Path to Exile , none of which Assassin’s Trophy can do.  When Trophy is bad it is quite Anemic. The drawback of ramping your opponent in game 1 is much more real than in a postboard game and can often allow a deck like Tron to go over the top of you.  Having outs to Ensnaring Bridge game 1 in theory sounds nice but is such a rarity when it wins you the game. Casting Trophy on a bridge cast by a Karn often buys you a single attack since you are ramping the ramp deck as well as bringing them much closer to Karn-Lattice lock, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon , All is Dust , etc.  Lightning Axe can also be cast on turn 2 in conjunction with a hogaak in some hands.  

Also, have you seen this guy’s face? 

He doesn’t look afraid to me.  Remember you are the boogeyman of the format, not some deck playing basic Wastes or Arcum’s Astrolabe .

The scope of cards this deck cares about in game 1 is just not enough to justify a clunky card you actively do not want to draw in the majority of spots.  

What I Would Not Play:

MD:

  Hedron Crab – Playing with this card feels great.  Most times you cast it with a fetch you flip a bunch of cards and feel like your deck is working perfectly.  But then you look down at your board. You see a Steam Vents you fetched out on turn 1, you see a Gravecrawler it cannot cast.  You see a satyr wayfinder and your other land is a Blood Crypt. You have a Hogaak and 2 Vengevines that crabby boy found you…but you just can’t bring them into play.  Crab is very good in the mirror game 1 like thug but has a much larger cost. Warping your manabase for a 1 drop that you actively want to board out makes your red match up significantly worse.  Unlike supplier and Wayfinder, Hedron Crab only performs at a playable level on turn 1 or 2 and is a pretty abysmal topdeck. Many of the games where crab looks like a great card are games you would likely win because you registered Hogaak in modern.  

Altar of Dementia – This fits somewhere between Hedron Crab and Assassin’s Trophy where the games you win via mill are either games you were going to win without it and the games you are not are so slim that it is hard to justify a slot.  Without bridge it’s hard to call the self mill value enough to want over simply a Golgari Thug or Wayfinder.  

Cryptbreaker / Lotleth Troll – Both of these cards are more or less sideboard cards that cannot really justify a board slot and end up in the main.  Having the effect of a near indestructible slammer against jund is very nice or a howling mine when under ensnaring bridge or a mirror.  The issue with playing these 2 is that they are cards you not only want to board out most of the time but just don’t want to draw in most game 1s.  If I mulligan to 6 and see one of these, I’m almost always shipping it to the bottom or wishing I put a different card in my deck. Cryptbreaker also requires a boardstate where drawing a card is worth more than 5 damage and Lotleth Troll is just not a Modern power level card on its own.  

Leyline of the Void – Leyline main is TERRIBLE outside of open decklists: half the time you find this on a mulligan you have to bottom this or save it to bin to looting.  This made much more sense when it also protected your Bridge from Below.  

Darkblast – I did not include this in my list but I think this is a very reasonable card to play.  Wrenn and Six has pushed many creatures this answers out of the meta but the card is very strong in the mirror.  Before Turn 2 Darkblast can prevent a Hogaak from going on the stack and afterwards allows yours to eat theirs in combat.  

SB:

Shenanigans – This card would be a consideration if Force of Vigor did not come out in the same set.  I’ve already made my point about Force so I won’t repeat myself. 

Fatal Push – This is in theory a good sideboard card, however most creatures we can simply ignore or save a Lightning Axe / Trophy for.  It’s hard to justify a slot for creature removal when the most impactful board cards from creature decks are non-creatures.  

The Sideboard:

Similar to the Maindeck, I feel you really only need 10 of the 15 slots for the deck to function, those being the middle and right-hand column above of 

4 Leyline of the Void – All that really matters in postboard games is resolving Hogaak First.  Play 4 of this.

 3 Force of Vigor – See above, this card is the best card in the sideboard.

 3 Assassin’s Trophy – Trophy being a catch-all is nice for many reasons.  Matchups like UW, Jund, and Humans you never really know what you will need to answer.  Against UW you often need an answer to not only Rest in Peace, but also haymakers like Baneslayer Angel and Monastery Mentor .  Jund attacks your graveyard from almost every angle via Nihil Spellbomb, Scavenging Ooze, Leyline, Surgical Extraction, and sometimes extreme cards like Ashiok, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet , or some other nonsense.  

These 5 Slots are not really necessary but I think this is the best way to hedge for the meta:

2 Collective Brutality – As said before Basic Mountain decks have the highest potential to punish you for stumbling and this is a great hedge for that matchup. 

2 Thoughtseize –  Weather or not it’s good people like to play UW and Allosaurus Combo.  Thoughtseize is a great anti-nonsense valve and also has lots of equity against Green Tron which can be needed sometimes.  

1 Plague Engineer – Just a good card in modern as well as the Mirror.  Postboard mirrors are all about landing a Hogaak first.  Engineer does a wonderful job of delaying this and in the worst case trading for Hogaak himself in combat.  

Conclusion

Never forget that you are the boogeyman of modern and you are the one asking the questions.  Goldfish a ton, get used to the sequencing, and enjoy the last tournament of the Hogaak era. You are making history!

Keep Gaaking,

-Cliffy

MADMAN, GENIUS OR BOTH? CHAPTER TWO: EIGHT BALL TO THE FACE

Welcome to another installment of Madman, Genius, or Both? This week’s focus is on another Modern deck that I came across about a month ago when I was researching my previous Nexus of Fate article. If you’re looking to play a Nexus of Fate deck in Modern, check out my previous article. If you’d rather smash people in the face repeatedly with hasty 6/1 creatures – well, I’ve got the deck for you.

This is the first iteration I came across, which was posted on July 16, 2019 as a 5-0 list from a Modern League. If the deck had been around before then, I was unaware of it.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson

I still remember the first time I lost to Ball Lightning as a kid. Even then it felt like a perfect, identity defining card for red (and still does). This was at a time when all I wanted to do was save up my allowance to buy the lone copy of a Revised Force of Nature at the local game store (which I ultimately did do).

Nostalgia aside, what does this deck do? Well, as I mentioned above (and Mike Tyson clarified), you punch your opponent in the mouth repeatedly with 6/1 trampling creatures until the game ends. Don’t believe me, check out the core of what makes this deck filthy:

Yep. Like most Modern decks that play red cards and win games of magic, we’ve got the full four copies of Faithless Looting. This is the most important card to have in your opening hand and the deck’s most powerful turn one play. This version runs the additional full suite of both Thoughtseize and Inquisition of KoziIek, giving the deck twelve turn one discard outlets if you take the all-in approach. What is that approach, you ask? Well, if you are lucky enough to have the option of playing your best and most important creature in Thunderkin Awakener on turn two, it will often be correct on turn one to Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek yourself to get a Lightning Skelemental or Ball Lightning into the graveyard. On turn two you can play Thunderkin Awakener, attack, and hopefully throw a 6 damage Blightning at your opponents face. The next turn you do the same thing. If they Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push or otherwise kill your Thunderkin Awakener, not to worry.

Just go ahead and cast Unearth on your Thunderkin Awakener, attack, and go back to throwing those six damage haymakers at your opponent. 

With four Lightning Bolt and three Dreadhorde Arcanist to re-cast said lightning bolts, the deck has some reach to finish games off if you can land a couple of early six damage bursts. As additional removal, the deck also runs two copies of Fatal Push and a single copy of Kolaghan’s Command. The Dreadhorde Arcanist can also be used to Unearth the Thunderkin Awakener for the second or third time as needed, though this is less efficient because you can’t attack with Arcanist, cast Unearth, and attack with Awakener on the same turn.

Last, for some later game value creatures, this version runs two Seasoned Pyromancer and one Young Pyromancer just in case your Lightning Bolts aren’t enough to finish the game.

More recently, Caleb Durward took a slightly modified version of the deck to a 5-0 finish in a Modern League posted on July 30, 2019. Then, on August 10, 2019, MTGO player LORDOFTHELOBSTERS took Caleb’s identical seventy-five for a spin into tenth place in a Modern Challenge:

This version cuts one Dreadhorde Arcanist, one Kolaghan’s Command, one Young Pyromancer, and one each of Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. In exchange, we see the third and fourth copies of Seasoned Pyromancer, the third Fatal Push, a Collective Brutality, and a Dreadbore.

These changes seems solid. Kolaghan’s Command feels like a worse, more expensive Unearth that doesn’t put Thunderkin Awakener directly into play. Meanwhile, Collective Brutality seems great because you’re only down one net discard effect, and you get some added utility all in one card. The ability to discard excess lands and/or dig for needed resources also sounds great with regard to the third and fourth copies of Seasoned Pyromancer.

The manabase is also upgraded. Caleb has cut the third Blood Crypt and two Mountains in exchange for a Cavern of Souls, a Fiery Islet, and the eighth fetch land. The takeaway here is that the original version had eighteen red mana sources and fifteen black sources, while Caleb’s paired down to seventeen red mana sources and fifteen black sources. He traded one red mana source for some modest flood insurance and a way to cast un-counterable creatures. Look, if we’re being greedy, let’s just commit to it.

DECK GRADE: MADMAN

While I like the changes to the deck and would recommend Caleb’s version if you want to give it a whirl, the fact that Dreadhorde Arcanist re-casting Unearth doesn’t allow you to attack with Thunderkin Awakener the same turn is something of a nonbo. This feels like the kind of deck where you’ll sometimes have to save up a bunch of resources and go all-in on a single turn to finish off your opponent. In that situation, Arcanist isn’t the redundant Unearth effect you need it to be.

That said, the larger issue here is that if you don’t draw Thunderkin Awakener, or if it gets exiled with something like Path to Exile, your plan kind of falls apart. Also, this deck feels extremely weak to graveyard hate, including Leyline of the Void, which is pretty popular right now in the current Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis era. Speaking of which, an 8/8 creature is pretty good at blocking 6/1s.

To be fair, this deck can kill on turn three with the right draw, which is fast enough to be competitive in Modern. This can happen in a few different ways. The first is where you cast Faithless Looting on turn one and discard two 6/1s. Then you untap, play the first Thunderkin Awakener on turn two, and attack for seven. If your opponent has 1 toughness or less to absorb damage, you can cast a second Thunderkin Awakener on turn three and bash for another 14 damage. If instead of Faithless Looting on turn one you have two one mana discard spells – this plan also works. You will still need two 6/1 creatures by turn three as well as two Thunderkin Awakeners. Alternatively, this deck can win with exactly lethal on turn three if you have double Lightning Bolt to close out the game after up bashing for 7 on your second and third turns.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the article! If you have any suggestions for decks you would like me to discuss, please let me know in the comments!

The New Player Challenge

Game variants and tips to help new and experienced players enjoy some epic battles together.

Do you have friends at school or people at your local game store who are just learning Magic? Maybe they don’t know all the rules. Maybe they do but tend to show up looking for a fun showdown where creatures get to wear big +7/+7 enchantments and ALL those 9 mana creatures are gonna get to come out and play. Are you looking to teach your mom how to play because she likes the art on these cards but doesnt understand why you think this game is so fun?

***

One of the things I’m interested in is how to create fun and satisfying play experiences when people of significantly different understandings of a game and different expectations sit down at the same gaming table.

I want to explore a few of the game variants that Wizards has provided us that are great tools when newer and more experienced players come together. The variants below help create enjoyable play experiences for all gamers and can be used as teaching tools for newer players.

***

Imagine this scenario: 

You have two younger cousins and one of their friends who have picked up some Magic cards because kids at school have been playing and they want to play with you. You have a couple of options at this point:

OPTION 1: Just say “No”. I’m too old/cool/busy to waste time playing with some annoying kids who dont even know how to hold their instant card draw until EOT. Then you go look at your phone for 30 minutes and ignore them. [SPOILER ALERT!: THIS IS THE WRONG AND WORST ANSWER! If this is you, I recommend a deep amount of soul searching, some community service, and a reassessment of your life choices.]

Related image

OPTION 2: Say “Yes” while evilly tapping your fingers together. Then proceed to put on a Scapeshift clinic that shows everyone how much they do not understand the game and sends them away crying to go study for years to come back and be trounced again while you slowly grind them to dust – laughing a maniacal laugh, sitting alone in your magical castle, friendless and feared by all.

This is also not a great option.

Even if the goal of a newer player is to try and learn more of the nuances of tight play, get better at the game, and improve their decisions – the first parts of that journey are going to be from having fun experiences with other better players, not from being continually smashed.

Option 3: Say, “Yes” and “Let’s try this fun way to battle! Let me show you how it works.”

Hooray! You’ve made the right choice! And here are a few tips, tricks and tools to help make sure new gamers and veterans can both enjoy something together.

Spellslinger Starter Kits

Magic has created an excellent ‘out of the box’ experience for new players where (for a very reasonable price) you can get two well balanced decks, two d20 life counters, and an easy rules primer.

Magic: The Gathering Spellslinger Starter Kit | 2 Starter Decks | 2 Dice | 2 Learn to Play Guides

These decks tend to be medium powered and have an interesting amount of tension. They also tend to be built to allow each player to do some very cool things with some relative consistency. There are not as many 4x cards so players get to see different cards mix together, and there are enough complex cards or interactions to keep it interesting.

More seasoned players may not see a need for this product since they have their favorite decks or like to brew up new unique inventions, but I love having something like this with me at the right moments. (I even used to build my own versions of these before Wizards put their money and brains behind doing it better.)

This allows both players to have decks with similar power levels and similar goals which generally leads to more fun!

Challenge Decks

Challenge Decks are a Wizards product that came out during Theros block to evoke the flavor of heroes undertaking heroic mythic challenges. They were a way of setting up a multiplayer where it was all players vs. a Challenge Deck.

These were meant to be a multiplayer (or even solo) experience where the players are fighting together to beat some structure set up by the Challenge Deck. In the first version, Face The Hydra, for example, the players are battling a many-headed Hydra represented by a deck of cards and there are modified rules about what the hydra deck does and how your creatures and

Related image
As advertised, this head is savage

spells work to defeat it. If you kill one of the hydra head cards, the deck flips two more cards off the top to see if any new heads grow from the stump! Very dramatic flavor and a great way to get players working together instead of opposing each other.

Face the Hydra, Battle the Horde, and Defeat a God – all three flavors of Challenge Decks are interesting twists on the same concepts and worth trying out.

As a game designer I was happy to see Wizards develop and polish something that was very similar to what we had been doing to accomplish the same goals around our own gaming table. We called our version The Dragon and I present it, not because it’s better than the highly developed Wizards version (it’s not), but because it may give you some ideas on how you can make up your own variations using whatever you have available.

The Great Fire-breathing Dragon

Well, we started this variant when my kids were young and wanted to play Magic but seemed to get frustrated when losing to each other. I also had lots and lots of creature tokens around that weren’t being used for anything.

Image result for dragon statues

The dragon was a ‘player’ with 20 life just like us but represented by a little dragon statue we had lying around. We shuffled up a deck of about 30-40 creature tokens. These were the dragons minions and their power and toughness ranged from 1/1 up to 4/4 creatures at a rate that was skewed to the smaller creatures.

Turns one and two the dragon revealed a token off the top and put its creatures into play.

Turn three onward the dragon rolled 1d4 and flipped over that many creatures from its token deck.

Then starting on turn 4 the dragon began breathing fire and rolled 1d6 for damage to a random player. Then on turn 7 the dragon began breathing 1d10 worth of fire damage.

Our combat rules were not well polished but the Dragon only damaged players with its fire and made its blocking decisions to kill the most number of attacking creatures with its token army.

We enjoyed it because it gave us a way to all unite around defeating a common enemy and made for some very exciting dice rolls when everyone’s life totals were withing roasting range of the dragon’s fiery breath.

Lets Play!

My goal with anyone interested in Magic or any other fantastic game is to find ways to introduce them to my favorite thing in ways that dont overwhelm them and that keep them interested and (hopefully) coming back for more of those experiences.

So, when I think about playing Magic and how I want to introduce it to new players I think about three things:

  1. Keep it simple. The bare bones of the information on a card, the turn structure, and combat are enough to get you started.
  2. Let people play with the cards and see what they do. This game has some fantastic complexity and getting to discover that on your own is very rewarding.
  3. Make sure people have positive play experiences. This does not mean they always have to win, but it means being aware of how the games are feeling to all the players, making sure players treat each other respectfully, and that the format is going to give those players some memorable moments.

If you’d care to share any of your own favorite variants for introducing Magic to new players we’d love to hear about them. Thanks for reading and keep on gaming!

The Opener: Pack one Pick one Modern Horizons

With GP Vegas in two weeks, I hope that this will help you prepare and/or provide a context to this fantastic format before it is gone from Competitive Play.

The first pick of the draft is not extremely important but it’s fun to think about. It doesn’t always get played and it’s the pick with the least amount of context. At this point in the draft, you don’t have any idea what any other player is doing yet. Your goal when you’re first picking should be, in general, to take the most powerful card. 

If you have never read a ‘what’s the pick?” article before, I will be showing you a few pack one pick one (P1P1) scenarios and I will tell you what I would take and my reasoning behind it. I will also give an honorable mention. So let’s get started!

P1p1 (1)

My pick: Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Honorable mention: Changeling Outcast

In my experience so far, Hogaak doesn’t just feel broken in Modern. It also doesn’t take much work to make him very good in limited. Sometimes all you need are some Winding Ways and/or Ransack the Labs. It’s not going to be an early play in limited but it is always a powerful one. An 8/8 trample in this format is huge! It will always be the biggest creature and it demands an answer yet there aren’t many removal spells in the format that can actually deal with it forever or even temporarily. I probably wouldn’t take it this early but this is definitely a weak pack. The next best card is probably Changeling Outcast not on raw power level but it is a wonderful enabler for the Ninjas archetype which in my opinion is one of the best decks.

My pick: Ingenious Infiltrator

Last loser (second place): Force of Virtue

There are definitely two cards that really stick out to me here. The gold card and the rare. Generally it’s not good to take gold cards super early because your chance of it making your deck is so low or you can end up pigeon-holing yourself early. It’s relatively close but this time I am making an exception for the Infiltrator because it is a bomb in it’s archetype and also the the rare is in the worst color, white. After picking this up I am looking to play about as many Changeling Outcast as I can. I hope that this one comes back to me. However, I doubt that it will because the commons here are pretty weak otherwise.

My Pick: Serra the Benevolent

Honorable mention: Snow-covered Island

Conversely to the last pick, we are taking the white rare this time. It’s generally accepted that white is the worst color in the format by a decent margin. However, Serra the Benevolent is a low-key bomb and this pack is quite weak. The reason that I would take her here is because there really isn’t any other card here besides the Snow-Covered Island that my deck is likely to miss. Everything else here is either filler or merely good in a single archetype.

Drafting with players is self-correcting. Because of that, I am happy to be white in this format if I can identify that I am the only one playing it. Serra is the most powerful when she is coming down in the early stages of the game, usually as a 4/4 Flying, Vigilance with upside. A common play pattern with her is to play her on turn four, make a token, tick up turn 5 if she survives and then make another token if she isn’t extremely likely to survive after that. That’s really powerful and enough for me to take a chance on white this early coupled with the low power level of the rest of the pack.

I hope that you all enjoyed or at least learned something from this first installment of The Opener. There are more to come and other formats to explore. If you have any feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Thank you, and I hope to see you all in Vegas!

MADMAN, GENIUS, OR BOTH? CHAPTER ONE: NEXUS OF HATE

Introducing my new article series Madman, Genius or Both?, where I shine a spotlight on a deck list that I find interesting and attempt to solve the ultimate question of whether the deck creator is a madman, genius, or both. As the title implies, the first deck I’ll be talking about includes the much hated card, Nexus of Fate.

I started writing this article back in June, before we had a firm launch date for manatutors. At that time, I spotted a deck by FTZZ, who posted a 29thplace finish in a Modern Challenge from May 18, then another 5-0 result with the identical decklist on May 31, 2019. Here is that list:

I LOVE THIS DECK, BUT I NEVER WANT TO PLAY AGAINST IT.

I plan to try out the deck on Magic Online at some point and write a follow up piece, but it should be noted up front that I have played exactly zero games with the deck. 

That said, it has the core of every blue deck I’ve ever sat down to build in Modern: 4 Cryptic Command and 4 Remand . Most decks I’ve tried to build are some version of Blue control and they never seem to be able to fit the full 8 copies, but FTZZ has found a formula that seems at least functional. In fact, this deck not only fits them, but it feels like it leans pretty heavily on both the Cryptic Commands and Remands just to stay alive long enough to win the game. 

Next, you show me a deck in Modern that can actually make use of Mystical Teachings and you’ve already won me over. I love me some Mystical Teachings. I’ve tried to make them work in Modern, but as a grindy value card in Esper or Grixis it has never been good enough. 

Enter the Wilderness Reclamation/Nexus of Fate combo.

Wilderness Reclamation takes Mystical Teachings and makes it playable. A worse version of a one-sided Mana Flare, Wilderness Reclamation untaps all of your lands at the beginning of your end step, thereby effectively doubling your access to mana for each copy of Wilderness Reclamation in play. This allows you to cast expensive instants like Nexus of Fate at the end of your turn as early as turn 4.

Other than lands, there are only three cards in the deck that you want to cast during your main phase and they are all Wilderness Reclamations. In the early game, the deck simply wants to hold up remand mana and then cast growth spirals and opts on the opponents end step until you hit your fourth land and hopefully stick wilderness reclamation. Then you can immediately untap and hold up Cryptic Command mana until you’re ready to go off.  

The key is to survive long enough to take multiple turns with Nexus of Fate until you have enough mana to either mill out your opponent with Blue Sun’s Zenith, or beat them to death with some combination of snapcaster mages and creeping tar pits. To get to that point in the game, you need a critical mass of lands, plus at least one wilderness reclamation. To really go off, you probably want two wilderness reclamations out at the same time. The minimum number of mana you’ll need to start taking several additional turns is 13. With only 11 mana, you can cast teachings for Nexus, but you need the full 13 mana to flashback teachings and cast Nexus on the same turn. The other important piece to this deck is Blue Sun’s Zenith.

If they don’t have counter spells, you can cast Mystical Teachings on their end step for Blue Sun’s Zenith, untap, play your fifth land, and then on your end step you have access to 10 mana to reload your hand if necessary with Zenith, or continue to hold up counterspells and removal until you’re ready to go off. 

The removal suite of 3 fatal push, 1 abrupt decay, and 1 assassin’s trophy means game one against the super aggressive decks is likely not favorable. However, the combination of blast zone, pulse of murasa, and snapcaster mage means the deck is capable of sweeping the board potentially 3 different times and gaining 12 life in the process. 

Post board the deck has access to 14 silver bullets and the 4th Snapcaster Mage. The combination of 3 Mystical Teachings and 4 Snapcaster Mage means the deck has 4 cards that represent the first copy of each silver bullet, plus 4 additional cards that represent version #2 of that silver bullet. That is some decent consistency. Death to the werewolves I guess. 

Like most combo decks, this deck feels fragile. Thoughtseize into surgical extraction on either nexus, blue sun’s zenith, or wilderness reclamation feels like game over, but such is life for most Modern combo players.

On that note, I recently looked back through some recent online decklists because the article was getting stale and luckily found a more recent version of the deck by FTZZ. This was a 5-0 list from July 12, 2019:

Here, FTZZ has added another win condition in expansion // explosion and cut down to 2 Teachings. In doing so, they’ve changed up the mana base to support double red, and adjusted the removal suite accordingly, opting for 3 lighting bolt instead of fatal push. The mana base has also changed. Instead of two creeping tar pits and a Blast Zone, FTZZ has opted for Kher Keep, Lumbering Falls, and Kessig Wolf Run. Unclear whether Blast Zone was cut because it wasn’t pulling its weight or for color restrictions. They’ve also added a Minamo, School at Water’s Edge for what can only be style points. (Because untapping the newly added Ice-Fang Coatl doesn’t seem worth the cost of not running the 5th Snow Island when turning on deathtouch and eating a turn three Hogaak seems critical to the whole not dying plan.) 

The sideboard has also changed to account for the color shift to red, and to add copies 2-4 of the Ice-Fang Coatl, which seems like it would be an all-star against the fair creature decks. And just when I thought I was done talking about this deck, I found a more recent version. This is a 5-0 list by DANADIN posted July 30, 2019.

DANADIN has kept the core of the original deck (4 Cryptic, 4 Remand, 4 Growth Spiral, 3 Mystical Teachings, 3 Wilderness Reclamation, 1 Blue Sun’s Zenith, and 1 Nexus of Fate) but has gone harder on the snow sub-theme to support the 4 maindeck Ice-Fang Coatls and Astrolabes. I don’t mind the Astrolabe’s over the Opts here, especially since having access to Scrying Sheets in a deck with 20 snow permanents seems like it would be fairly good while the deck is setting up to win.

The sideboard is similar but slightly less diversified than FTZZ. I personally like the second surgical rather than a 1-1 split of surgical/extirpate, just because sometimes you need all your mana to cast teachings. I would like to fit an assassin’s trophy into the sideboard, but without playing any games I have no idea what I would cut. (Though it’s probably weather the storm, since I have a feeling burn is unwinnable anyway.)

DECK GRADE: GENIUS

It may not be Tier 1, or even 2, but figuring out how to win games of Modern with 3 mystical teachings in your main deck along with the full suite of cryptic commands and remands is straight up badass. 

Although it’s certainly not the fastest deck in Modern, it has inevitability against a lot of the field, and comes with a very customizable sideboard plan, which is always fun for people like me who like to tinker with their sideboards. 

If I were to play this deck anytime in the near future I would start with DANADIN’s version because I think the mana is more consistent and the snow sub-theme and main-deck Coatls seems necessary in the current Hogaak era of Modern.

OPPONENTS WHO LOST TO THIS DECK: MAD!, man. Is there anything more frustrating and non-interactive then having all your spells remanded or cryptic commanded only to sit there and watch your opponent take 4 or 5 turns in a row off Nexus of Fate and then mill your face for 50 while you sit there waiting for the game to end? No, no there is not.

The Medium Guide to Big Magic Tournaments (part 1)

This is part one of a multiple article series. The first article will cover gameplay improvements and suggestions. Part two will cover some meta decisions about how to do well at tournaments. Part three will cover logistical suggestions.

Image result for mtg draw

Over the course of a few years I went from coming back into magic with no cards and on a 5+ year hiatus, to finishing top 16 in Grand Prix tournaments in every format. I haven’t been the best at spiking tournaments, but I have done an above average job of putting myself into a bubble slot to get there. I think my perspective is more interesting because I am not a full time magic player, and I do not necessarily travel or prepare as much as other more entrenched players. I go to about 6-8 mostly local GP’s a year, many local PTQ’s, play almost zero online magic. In short, I don’t have as much play time in any given format as many of my opponents, have a full-time job, don’t spend a ton of money on travel, and am therefore closer to the average mtg player than many higher-level pros. The purpose of this article will be to give several small tips and other edges that I think will help you improve your win percentages in larger tournaments and maybe help with some of the other less talked about aspects of magic. Many of these may be obvious to you, while others might not apply, but hopefully one or two nuggets of wisdom stick and help in your future endeavors.

A draw is a loss

I’m going to start with one of my biggest pet peeves, and a point that I think is often misunderstood by newer players. A DRAW IS A LOSS.

Jace's Erasure

Don’t play to draw, especially in a large tournament, if you can help it. The first reason for this is literal, for the purposes of making day two and for pairings for the rest of the tournament, a draw functions as a loss. It doesn’t help for making day two, it doesn’t help for more pro points, and it only marginally helps with payouts at the end if you get that far. Until/if you get to the final round, then it might act as a “really good tiebreaker” on a loss at best. The second reason you don’t want a draw is because the draws tend to beget more draws. Once you are in the draw bracket at a GP, the only people you will be playing for the remainder of the tournament will also be people that took draws; these are players that probably will not set speed records for decision making and there is an above average chance that they are control players. The reason I am hyperbolic here is because I think the mental shift of considering a draw to be a loss will actively change how you play, usually for the better. By playing as if a draw is literally losing it forces you to change your perspective. You can also take all of this to mean that you should play faster. But I think it would be more precise to say “be mindful of time” and “be more efficient.” The clock system being used in paper magic is different from digital magic, and put constraints on both players very different from those online.

Sidenote: one can take advantage of knowledge of the draw bracket. For example, in legacy the draw bracket is usually dominated by bad miracles players, if you are playing something like post that is 70-30 against miracles, a draw might be an interesting heads up play. I say “bad” miracles players, because miracles is a deck with a lot of decisions and very few win conditions, and it takes a lot of practice to be able to make all of the necessary decisions quickly and the newer players to the deck tend to be glacial; this also applies to UW control in modern, and occasionally to win-conditionless standard decks. Basically, this is always kind of a joke scenario I discuss among friends, and I don’t recommend taking draws early just to try and beat inexperienced control pilots (which might backfire anyway, as they might play you into additional draws).

Worship

I have one unintentional draw in my magic career, and that is because of a spirits mirror where we both had worship in play; I was playing lightning fast trying to get to my 2 remaining outs to remove his enchantment (he was out of outs to remove mine). Honestly, it’s my fault for having the card in my sideboard in the first place. By the end of the season we had discovered that often Gideon Jura performed a similar role better (especially against other worship decks), and were using this in the same slot.

Slow Motion

There are several reasons I do not draw very often:

  • I try to get to my seat early to get a clear view of the round timer; being able to see the timer is a good way to be able to steer the speed of the match. My rule of thumb, if your first game looks to be going over the 15 minute mark, try to see how you can speed things up and evaluate how both players’ pacing is going.
  • Be willing to concede against a control or prison deck game 1 if you are less than 5% to win; this is/was especially key against decks like lantern control in modern (or if both players are on a control mirror in standard), where they are so slow that if you let the games play out all the way the match could be a single game affair. Sometimes if you can see that the match might go very long, it can be best to try to move along so that you have a chance to get to a reasonable game 3 if you win game 2.
Lantern of Insight
  • Often for decks like lantern the fault of “slowplay” isn’t on the part of the lantern player; rather, their opponent tends to take a longer time to make plays or refuse to concede because they don’t know they are beaten.
    • I have seen a local bay area grinder unintentionally draw himself out of top 8 contention on at least 2 occasions because he a) tends to play slower decks, b) is unlucky enough to face opponents that are both slow decision makers and unwilling to concede when effectively beaten, and c) doesn’t call a judge soon enough. This leads us to the next point.
Isperia, Supreme Judge
  • I am ready and willing to call a judge on my opponent for slow-play. You do not have to be rude about this. I usually give my own verbal warning first, something along the lines of “hey, it’s already been 15 minutes this game, let’s both try to play faster so we don’t draw.” After I talk to my opponent and they are still playing slowly I am happy to call a judge to watch our pace of play. This is not a dirty, shameful act, and your opponent does not have any reason to be salty because of this. It is in both players’ best interest to finish a match on time and judges are there to help for just that kind of thing.
  • My pace of play is slightly above average. This is largely because whenever there is downtime in a game, while someone is shuffling or my opponent is thinking, I am thinking about what my next move(s) will be, and what counter plays I might have to his possible moves. This is also useful for having meaningful bluffs; if you can jam your cards quickly without having to pause to think it makes you much more believable. I will adjust my sideboarding based on how much time is left and if I need to play to win quickly.
  • I tend to play proactive decks. Obviously this isn’t always correct (unless the format is modern: friends don’t let friends play control in modern) and it isn’t everyone’s style, but boy do I like having time between rounds in a large tournament. I will play a more controlling deck, but only if I have sufficient time to learn the deck thoroughly enough to not draw.
Words of Waste
  • I’m not an over-shuffler. We’ve all sat across from the player who takes 5 minutes shuffling EVERY TIME. Then they spend just as much time shuffling your deck as they did their own. Don’t be that guy. This is a substantial waste of time for both parties no matter how much you feel like you’re controlling your destiny by over-shuffling (you aren’t). 7 riffles is enough to sufficiently randomize; a few more is fine, but please for the sake of us all, don’t overdo it.

You are going to make mistakes

Unfun facts. You are going to punt important matches, you are going to make bad deck choices, you might mis-register your deck, be late for a round, or draw yourself into 9th (I just did this at a recent CFB legacy 3k), or misread an opponent and get beaten on a bluff. It is all your fault and you might feel bad about it.

Mental Misstep

I have found that the best thing for me is to acknowledge the mistakes, find the parts that you did not do wrong, and then kindly and gently (not forcefully, if that makes sense) shelve it and put it behind you as best you can. You brain will try to focus on the bad more than the good, and the only thing you can do is try to acknowledge it and move along. Similarly, you must trust the man on the ground. Looking back at video footage with future knowledge might make it easy to be down on yourself, but it is important to realize what you knew at the time. I unnecessarily gave Jeremy Dezani a 3 outer to beat me in game 3 of a legacy GP win-and-in. It bothered me immensely for a day or two, but eventually I had to calmly recognize that I made a mistake, and that is ok. This is doubly true mid-tournament, where it is very easy to go on tilt and cause additional losses. I think this is also important for team events. You’ve chosen your teammates beforehand, they will make mistakes and that is ok, just try to help each other out as best you can. My friends and I have a saying we will yell at each other when someone tilts mid-tournament: “new round new tournament!” This doesn’t really make sense, but it is a reminder that each round is an independent entity, and there is no reason to go in with baggage from previous rounds.

Don’t always do the same thing

I provide a lot of heuristics, as do various other authors, for what one should do in specific situations.

Ad Nauseam

These are great as general rules, but there are always times to improvise. I’ve been told by a few different storm opponents that I am difficult to play against; largely because when they present a difficult situation I will react differently or at least think it through each time. Many players, especially playing against a complicated combo deck like storm, will always do X. For example, some people will always counter the dark ritual, while others refuse to. Your opponent can take advantage of this, especially if they have played against you multiple times. If you always counter the ritual they can try to bait your counterspells with rituals. If you never counter they know they can just go off with ritual into duress. When you are playing a match you are building a narrative with your opponent. Maybe they have an overrun effect in sealed that they showed you the first game, and now they know you have to respect that overrun for the rest of the match. Similarly, I will often attack my 2/2 into their 0/3 early in a game/match. They either call my “bluff” and block, in which case I might be able to make the same play later and get them with a combat trick on a more important creature, or they give me free damage. Whatever way you do it, always keep in mind you are giving and receiving information from your opponent about what level you are on, how willing you are to bluff, and how you are most likely to respond to any given situation.

It is usually correct to jam, especially in limited

It is very common for midlevel players (grinders, I consider myself to fit this description) to want to play around everything. Maybe you are playing against standard control and want to play around turn two syncopate, or you don’t want to lose to overcome in sealed from the green deck. I think it is an important skill in magic to be able to realize what could happen that would make things go wrong. Maybe they have force of will, maybe you can get blown out by a combat trick, maybe they kill you when you let them untap in modern. However, knowing something can go wrong is not the same as acting like they always have it. I usually have a rough idea of what they might be able to do to stop me and what the percentages are based on card % and how they’ve been acting in the game. It is often correct, knowing the risks, to just make the proactive play.

Aggressive Urge

In sealed if I know that my all out attack to put them dead in two turns loses to a threaten effect, I will jam because a) they have to put threaten in their deck, and b) they might have wrath of god or something much worse waiting to get you dead if you give them extra time. I tend to play magic like Doyle Brunson plays poker: loose-aggressive. It is usually worth it to push your advantage rather than give them time to catch up. This is important for control players as well. Sometimes snapcaster mage’s job is to be ambush viper so that you can actually end the game against a combo opponent. This also depends on the level of your opponent. If they are a good player, they might be enticing you with a position of weakness instead of actively being weak, trying to get you to over commit into a sweeper. Basically, what I am trying to say is that most players, especially at the grand prix level, are on level 1. They probably are not bluffing, their obvious tells are actually tells, and they probably don’t have it. Of course, this is susceptible to how you read your opponent. I once lost a match against Dan Ward because I made an aggressive attack into him game one, thinking there’s no way he is main-decking threaten because that card is bad. Turns out he was and I was immediately punished.

Act of Aggression

This is a very loose heuristic, and one that gets me in trouble if followed without thinking. My win percentage for modern horizons has been significantly lower than other limited sets because I tend to play more aggressively. The problem is that modern horizons has many more powerful cards than most sets, and there are more ways to be punished for loose play. There are also many more modal cards that might otherwise be so-so such as stirring address. Basically what I am trying to say is don’t be too meek, each of use will lose games to being too loose or too defensive, but I would rather be on the too loose side, at least then I have time to get lunch. I play like an ape and get rewarded, and do best with decks that reward this behavior (Legacy show and tell). This isn’t for everyone. At a minimum however I think it is a useful skill to know all the ways that a thing could go wrong, know exactly what decision you are making, and then make the loose/aggressive decision anyway. Inaction is just as dangerous as pushing, and giving your opponent extra time is always a risk.

Thus ends this particular week’s ramblings. Tune in soon for part two of this article, detailing higher level meta decisions and other tournament prep notes.

Revisiting Legacy Storm: Daze

Edit: Before going through this I would like to add that this was written right before Modern Horizons became legal and the meta has become a little less hostile and less focused around WAR haymakers since then.  This article was written with a meta of spring 2019 in mind and a few points may be less impactful as of this article’s release in July 2019. That being said, this is still a very comprehensive guide on one of the many options we have in the Dark Ritual world and well worth discovering.  Also I would like to credit Kai Sawatari and Jonathan Alexander for originating this plan. Enjoy.

In a format driven by velocity, mana efficiency is at a premium.  Almost every viable deck tries to take advantage of card costs in some way, whether it’s through delve, Phyrexian mana, graveyard recursion, or an alternative cost.  Following Force of Will and Surgical Extraction, we see Daze as a premier “free” spell in the format. Probably the greatest tempo spell ever printed, the card has proven its strength along side quick clocks and mana denial strategies.  Recently banned in Pauper, this powerhouse can and has allowed combo decks with too low of a blue count for Force of Will to interact on an axis they normally cannot. Having a short shelf life however, Daze comes at a cost. War of the Spark has given legacy quite a shake-up, introducing many new problematic cards for combo strategies including Karn, the Great Creator , Narset, Parter of Veils , and Dreadhorde Arcanist , as well as a resurgence in old staples like Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance .

I think our friend from Nemesis may be the answer

What does daze offer to Storm?

Although you can try to play the counter war game, that’s likely not going to earn a slot in the storm box.  Much more often than not, storm has no issue dealing with a pile of counter-magic since it is a completely reactive form of interaction and is not really something we need to care about until we want to win.  This is something that becomes more and more apparent the more games you play vs blue mages and how sequencing your spells correctly can bait or encourage your opponent to spew their counters where they should not.

Similar to Abrupt Decay , Daze allows storm to play answers to permanent based hate that are generic enough to have text in most matchups.  Being a Counterspell, the card has at least a little value across the board. Where Daze shines however is the fact that this is a Zero Mana answer to Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Counterbalance and others.  One of the issues that Abrupt Decay has against taxing permanents is that you normally need to spend a turn or more off to answer it and by this time, there’s a good chance that you’ve lost the window that Decay was supposed to create; They may have played another permanent or two to slow you down or possibly turned off your Ad Nauseam line.  If this card still seems out of place to you, let’s look at how Daze lines up against the metagame.

But first, the list:

Sawatari Daze Strom(SDS): By Kai Sawatari

First off, I just want to say that nothing about this list plays out the way you think it does in your head (or at least it did for me).  Everything about this list that I wanted to change upon initial glance demonstrated its purpose when I played with it. Many of the concerns that I had ended up not being as big of a deal as I thought they were once I learned how the machine works.  As you can see, there are a lot of changes made from the stock list to incorporate the Daze plan. This may seem a little extreme or unnecessary but the gameplan of this list will become more apparent as we look at how this lines up against the field. I am going to group the field into three groups: Combo, Fair-Blue, and Prison.  The 2019 meta is much more diverse than this but most decks tend to take the role of one of these three when against ritual-based combo decks.

Daze Storm Vs. The World

How Storm battles Prison Decks and the “No Fear Pivot”

Well normally we don’t, but here’s how we think we do.  Game 1 generally is a lot of crossing our fingers, prioritizing discard over cantripping, and playing around as little as possible after the first lock piece comes down.  This varies a lot by matchup but generally we are in goldfish mode and make more aggressive decisions with our cantrips. We also lean on poor Ad Nauseam lines over waiting for a deterministic line because passing the turn is more often incorrect when you have the option to not do so.  

Postboard games with a stock list are much slower as you board in 6 to 7 bounce or removal spells, diluting your deck on almost every axis.  Ad Nauseam gets worse because you have more non-goldfish cards to flip. Past in Flames is more often off the table since most decks in this category run hard graveyard hate like Tormod’s Crypt or Leyline of the Void .  Postboard hands missing a Lion’s Eye Diamond can be especially clunky as well. In addition to cutting cantrips, many games can be lost by having a redundant removal spell or simply the inability to punish your prison opponent when they mulligan into the ground and miss.  

Introducing the “No Fear Pivot”

  The Daze list takes a lot more of a “No Fear” approach against prison.  Our game plan here is to cut all discard for Decays, an additional Daze, and extra goldfish cards like Dark Petition or an extra Tendrils of Agony, both of which make our Ad Nauseams much smoother by not requiring a flip of Lion’s Eye Diamond to win that turn.  This configuration is surprisingly good at goldfishing on turn 2 or 3 while answering a permanent based piece of hate and avoids most of the issues a stock list runs into postboard. Keeping in all 12 cantrips and boarding up in “business” spells as opposed to down lets us do this much more often than it appears on paper.  It’s worth noting that this deck is worse than stock at fighting through an excessive, above average amount of hate. A traditional list having access to Echoing Truth , Chain of Vapor , and Hurkyl’s Recall will provide more resilience, however I have found this plan to be favorable against the vast majority of Ancient Tomb decks since most of the time you face a large pile of taxing artifacts you aren’t winning regardless of what your plan is.

How Storm Beats Other Combo Decks

This is obviously quite a sliding scale but most combo decks in legacy can be grouped into the ones that play Force of Will and the ones that don’t. 

Force of Will Combo decks tend to rely on cantrips and blue permission to protect their combo and ensure they live to tell their tale.  This category includes decks like Sneak and Show, High Tide, and Infect. Discard has historically beaten countermagic in combo mirrors and that still holds up in 2019.  These all tend to favor storm because discard tends to be harder to fight through as a combo deck than countermagic since blue permission is a completely reactive form of interaction and has a much larger mana tax to play it.  These matchups tend to involve lots of calculated risk-taking because passing the turn could mean death. That being said, even if they are aware of us playing daze, they probably cannot afford to play around it if it changes their clock.  Having both forms of interaction, especially in a game 1, is very strong and will win you games from the inability to play around it. 8 Discard is nice in game 1s here but so is beating your opponent. For these matchups we have the best of both worlds, having up to 6 counterspells and 8 discard spells postboard if we choose so.  Speed is almost always the name of the game and playing around cards game 1 although situational is more often incorrect in the blind because of how proactive these decks are.  

Non-Force Combo decks in legacy either rely on either efficient discard, a powerful backup plan, a plan that is hard to interact with, or raw speed. This encapsules the Reanimator and Dredge variants, Marit Leige variants, Elves, Storm variants, and others.  These matchups tend to have interesting decisions, mostly on how to use your interaction. A common one in discard mirrors, both fair and unfair, is if you spend your interaction on disrupting them or to stop their disruption. Daze tends to not be very useful in these matchups as mana is rarely a bottleneck when players are shredding each others’ hands and players can normally afford the tempo to play around it.  The main exception to this is the “raw speed” combo decks, mainly Black Red reanimator. This is an atrocious matchup for storm since they are a turn faster on average and have pregame interaction via Chancellor of the Annex . Daze is an amazing card for this matchup since they are a turn 1 combo deck with little resilience that really does not want to pass the turn.   

How Storm Beats Fair-Blue and the “Blue Pivots”

Fair-Blue decks are the largest subgroup of legacy and, in my opinion, the biggest reason to play ANT.  On paper, most of these decks look like they crush storm but play out differently when the stars don’t align.  Daze is far from an all-star here but we have quite a maniacal plan accounting this. Once again, there is a lot of deviation in these strategies but from the view of a storm pilot, Fair-Blue mostly breaks down into Aggro-Blue, UBx “Strix-Pile” Blue, and “Tundra Blue”.

UBx Blue decks like Grixis Control and Czech Pile tend to be the easiest of these three despite looking like the hardest on paper. I am categorizing this group as “strix-pile” decks from their use of Baleful Strix as a glue.   these decks use countermagic, Snapcaster Mage[c] , powerful discard like [c]Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach , and a strong Xerox package, which are all powerful, proactive forms of disruption against us.  However, the high amount of dead cards and lack of a clock make game 1 a heavy favorite due to the strength of Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam undoing all discard. The fact that most of these decks more often rely on Surgical Extraction over other hate like Nihil Spellbomb both means this is often true postboard.  Replacing the Daze package with more action and discard makes this matchup feel quite lopsided even post-board. Although we are not playing it, Empty the Warrens is also an insanely effective card that demands them to find a 2 or 3 of in short time. Often times 6 goblins will either be enough to cross the finish, or put a serious constraint on their cantrips and planeswalkers.  

Aggro Blue, which is basically only Delver of Secrets decks in 2019, is a little rougher than the strix blue matchup but has consistently been a good match up throughout history and remains so today.  Our gameplan is usually to establish stable mana, play around everything possible, and go off at the last possible second. Absolutely nothing about this is what Daze is trying to do.

Introducing the Semi-Pivot

In this matchup we transform into a Grinding Station-esque list, cutting all the cards with a shelf life for multiple copies of Tendrils, an extra Past in Flames, as well as Carpet of Flowers and more discard. The goal with this is to ignore all soft disruption by invalidating it and win by naturally drawing a copy of tendrils, if not two. That being said, Carpet of Flowers is important too and very much worth fetching into wasteland to play.  Without Deathrite Shaman in the format, most Delver decks can’t afford to play at least 2 lands into it. When it’s time to go off, keep in mind that a ritual or discard spell normally provokes a reaction with cards like Spell Pierce and Daze, adding to the storm count. Cantrips can also be saved for storm count on the combo turn once mana is no longer a bottleneck. This plan relies pretty heavily on the fact that these decks do not play discard and have no way to punish you for stockpiling your hand until the last second.  That being said, when the plan works, their hand is basically irrelevant. Since you always have inevitability in the match up, it is often worthwhile to take a threat with a turn one Thoughtseize to extend the game.  

Tundra Blue breaks down mostly into the Miracles and Stoneblade variants of legacy.  Although they function very differently, both play similar forms of interaction and have anemic clocks, so we will group them together.  Notably Daze can save us from losing to a Counterbalance on the spot or losing control to an early Jace, the Mind Sculptor , but the card is much worse postboard when both players are constantly passing the turn with mana up.  These decks try to hide behind a wall of Snapcaster Mages and Flusterstorms until either a Jace or mediocre creature beats takes the game. Outside of troubling permanents like Counterbalance and Search for Azcanta , the Snap-Fluster interaction can be very hard for a discard-based combo deck to beat if they do not come prepared to face it.  

Now is time to introduce the Full Pivot

(Prepare Yourself)

In these matchups we board out dazes as well as the Infernal Tutor-Lion’s Eye Diamond package entirely and bring in basically our entire sideboard.  Thirteen cards, all but the 4th Daze and 2nd Dark Petition come in and we are a different deck entirely. This configuration will basically never be able to go off in the first few turns but if the game goes as planned our engine will run almost without a choke point.  Going on manual mode means that our discard can basically ignore all spells that aren’t Snapcaster Mage, Surgical Extraction , and Flusterstorm. Sometimes we can even pay for Flusterstorm or fight over them with our own! Abrupt Decay is our greatest utility spell in the match up and a necessity to answer permanents Tundra Mages play like Counterbalance.  Keep in mind not to spew these, even when you have multiples; A surgical on Decay into counterbalance is the best line our opponent can take against our plan. Cabal Therapy outperforms other discard spells since it is normally a must-counter, meaning it generates multiple storm; The 3 3 2 split also provides incidental insulation from a proactive Surgical Extraction.  Carpet of Flowers either functions as a ritual by changing phases the turn you cast it or gives you the velocity to sculpt your hand while holding up interaction. All in all, we take the control role in the matchup and take advantage of the opponent respecting our explosiveness from game 1. One could think of this as a pump-fake: You keep them waiting on their countermagic for a Tutor or Past in Flames and then you cast 2 Tendrils off 8 mana with a Flusterstorm to fight back.  

Why is There No Empty the Warrens?

Empty the Warrens has been the secondary win condition of Storm decks since the card was printed.  Serving as a second angle of attack, Empty the Warrens fills a different role in each matchup.  As we go through the matchups, keep in mind how our deck pivots postboard in each case.

Against prison decks, Empty serves as a speed option, normally a calculated risk.  Most prison decks have an answer to a wide board; Death and Taxes has Batterskull , Eldrazi has Ratchet Bomb, Moon Stompy has Fiery Confluence ; The list goes on and on .  When we empty in these matchups, it’s generally in fear of something we cannot or do not want to play through, serving as an alternative of passing the turn.  Our “No Fear” pivot is shockingly consistent at casting Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames on turn 2 or 3 through a piece of hate. It is very rare with this configuration that you could tutor for Empty the Warrens and not simply win.  In the wise words of Cedric Phillips, “This is the classic plan of Ponder, kill you.”

Against Fair-Blue, Empty the Warrens serves as either a low-resource alternative that plays well through blue interaction or a “gotcha” or “cheese” play when you happen to naturally draw it.  Our configuration here, with the exception of the “strix blue” decks, is really set up to play a much more patient game. Since we never really have a lack of resources, we generally don’t need to take on the risks associated with this plan.    

Empty the Warrens is still a great storm card.  Having the option to go all in with as few as 8 goblins (or less!) when you know the coast is clear is very strong.  If there was a 16th slot, Empty the Warrens would be fine to add…but we don’t have that privilege. Empty would just be a little too low impact with this gameplan to warrant a slot.  The main appeal that I view from Empty the Warrens is the ability to board into a Blue Pivot vs the Discard “UBx” decks. As the list is, there is too much risk of a discard spell followed with a surgical taking your Tendrils of Agony when you have a full 3 in your deck against any UBx deck.  If you were inclined to run one, I would recommend playing it over a Tendrils rather than the Dark Petition since it is not good in combo mirrors.    

Conclusion & Sideboard Guide

I cannot stress enough how different this list plays out than one would think it does.  A lot of choices may seem suspect, but this is a very well-tuned machine that executes better than theory may suggest.  I would highly recommend trying the list card for card before making any changes and having faith in the board plan. Make sure to Join the Ad Nauseam Tendrils Facebook group if you found this interesting and would like to read more on this.  

Keep Storming,

Michael Clifford

For questions and inquiries, contact me at clifford@manatutors.com

Sideboard Guide:

Vs Delver “Semi Pivot”

Vs Tundra “Full Pivot”

Vs Grixis Control

Vs DnT “No Fear Pivot”

Vs Sneak and Show

Vs Storm

Vs Elves

OTD

OTP

Vs GB Depths Variants

Vs BR Reanimator

Vs Lands 

Vs Eldrazi / Moon stompy

Either this approach or

Vs 4c “Aggro” loam

SB Guide by Michael Clifford (Cl1ffy81)