Act of Reason Counter-Burn
I’m going to try and get back to weekly writing again for this website, but I can’t make any promises. Unlike most people who write articles, I work a normal 9-5 day as a Desktop Support Analyst for a publishing company.
There will be some weeks that I don’t even play at Friday Night Magic, but that doesn’t mean I’m not researching, testing and tweaking some of the best decks out there. Read more
Show me Whatcha got Wizards
This week’s Act of Reason is going to be fairly short; being that I haven’t written in months. I figure it’d be in your best interest for me to write something well…interesting! This week I’d like to touch briefly on the Magic: The Gathering event decks slated for release on February 25th. I’d like to try a little experiment at my local shop on the 25th and see if these event decks really have what it takes to compete with a (relatively) normal metagame.
FNM Reports posted for 9/17/2010
FNM reports are posted for 9/17/2010. They can be found in the FNM Report section.
FNM and M11 Pre-release report
This past Friday I attended FNM at my favorite gaming spot, but I didn’t run Jund! I know, big Shocker there. I didn’t run Jund because I wanted to prove to myself (and some other people) that I can indeed win without playing Jund. Well, I did just that. I ended up placing top 4 (it was reported as 2nd) with a home brewish deck. I sleeved up the following:
Meta-Schmeta!
First, I’d like to say that I have come up with an official name for my weekly blog articles. Drumroll please! *Ehem* Drumroll?? No? Whatever, I am calling my weekly article “Act of Reason.” Catchy huh? Anyway, in this week’s Act of Reason, I’m going to talk about choosing the right deck for your store’s meta.
There is only so much you can do by checking the top decks from tournaments on starcitygames.com each week for choosing which deck you want to play. What was good for that tournament’s meta might not be good for your store’s meta. You really need to sit back, look at your store, see who’s winning, and with what. You also need to look at your own matches and see what you faced. The week before last I faced 3 Jund decks, as the meta was flooded with it. There were zero control decks at our store. That made my decision for FNM pretty simple – play U/W control. Boy did I pick right! I went 3-1 and finished in the Top 4 on the night. The only deck that gave me trouble was a Runeflare Combo deck. Against U/W, Runeflare pretty much dominates. In fact, that Runeflare Combo deck was even more appropriate for our store’s meta than my selection of U/W Control! This completely goes to show you why choosing the right deck is so important.
So you might be asking, “Ok Bob, how do I know what to play?” The answer is not quite so simple and it requires a lot of research on your part. You should indeed research which decks are winning tournaments near and far, but more importantly you need to study their meta. Is Jund cleaning up? Likely the field is running aggro without control. Is Super Friends at the top? You’re likely facing a control dominated meta. At our shop, we see a heavy dose of Naya, Jund, and Vampires. In this aggro heavy field U/W Control was a perfect fit. Being that I was likely to face a lot of removal, I added the element of shroud in my deck to combat the large amount of removal. There were many games where I had dropped a Wall of Denial and my opponent could only shake their head in disgust. I didn’t just randomly decide that Wall of Denial would be “fun” for my deck, no, I needed something that was going to Fend Off an early assault by my opponents without getting Terminated while I dropped Elspeth, Jace and Gideon on the board. This wasn’t exactly where knowing what to play stops however, the other half of this is your sideboard.
I can say from my own experience, I am notoriously bad at both creating a sideboard and actually sideboarding during games. It is very important to once again, not only study the big tournament sideboards, but to study your own store’s meta. This week I got it right for once…erm well, mostly. I was really wishing I had a Mindbreak Trap in my sideboard against that Runeflare Combo deck. But other than that, I can’t say enough about running Hindering Light in U/W Control. Let’s look at all of the cards that this card stops at my store’s meta. It stops Doom Blade, Terminate, Blightning, Maelstrom Pulse, Lightning Bolt, Flame Slash, Runeflare Trap, Consuming Vapors, Path to Exile, and it also cantrips! Let’s bear in mind however that Hindering Light will counter Bituminous Blast but it won’t counter the cascade, so pick and choose carefully on this one. I also threw Deprive into my sideboard as kind of a catch all counter if I faced the mirror; I used it once to counter a Jace Beleren. The rest of my sideboard consisted of extra planeswalkers, one more Martial Coup and an Iona. I only sided in Iona against the Vampire deck I faced. The game dragged out to the point where I had the mana to hard cast her but I never drew her. Overall, I give my sideboard, for last week, a grade of B. There was room for improvement, but it shined mostly where it needed to. This week, if I bring the same deck, the sideboard will be slightly changed. Another quick sideboard tidbit for you is to know what cards you’re siding out and in with your sideboard for which match ups. I was able to side out all of my walls against the Runeflare Trap deck and side in some counter magic. Against Vampires, I was able to drop a land and some Spreading Seas. It’s important to know what you’re siding in and out and against what matchups because, in my experience, siding in something is only half the battle; knowing what to take out is key. The other issue I see a lot with myself is siding in cards that I don’t truly need in a match up. Why do I need to side in X card if I handled the deck fine game 1 and don’t Foresee anything crazy coming in from their board for game 2?
In the end, like I had already talked about, I went 3-1 and finished in the top 4 with my only loss from the Runeflare Combo deck. I was successful, mainly because this week, I picked the right deck to pilot for the store’s meta. So this weekend, when I sleeve up a deck, I need to think about two things 1) What decks are going to make an appearance and 2) what decks are going to be tweaked to beat mine? After all of this thought I’m likely going to give this deck a whirl again. It still feels like one of the best decks to run at the store and I think if I can get things right on the sideboard, I’ll be in even better shape this week.
So what did we learn this week? Meta is very important and you need to have keen observation skills at your store. You likely only play 4 or 5 people at your FNM each week, so you really need to pay attention to what is being played and by who so you can be prepared for the following week. Try to keep in mind what worked for you, what didn’t, what can I do to make things play out to my advantage, what sideboard should I bring, etc? These are all questions that are pertinent each week, but more importantly, they’re only good if you answer them based on your meta.
Oh yeah, I cracked a Gideon Jura out of my prize packs…
FNM and Vengevine Jund
This past Friday I sleeved up my Jund deck (as always) and went to battle my fellow planeswalkers at Friday Night Magic. The big difference this week was the version of Jund I decided to run. I took one of the many Vengevine versions and tweaked the sideboard to fit my meta. Read more
Losing Sucks…
This week I want to touch on Magic and what you can learn from losing. This past FNM I went 1-3 on the night. It was my worst tournament outing ever. When you lose you can do a couple of things: whine about how you got unlucky with your card draws (which I did), or look at the night and find out where things went south (I casted a Gideon Jura with a Vampire Hexmage on the battlefield). This single misplay ruined my whole night. The game would have likely ended much differently had I not botched up that single play. When all is said and done, you can step back and ask yourself, “What have I learned?”
In all honesty, the night mostly was just bad draws from a deck that has very little drawing power. I found myself behind early on in most of my games due to decks featuring some kind of early removal. Initially, I decided to sleeve up my own version of Mythic Conscription featuring Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Gideon Jura maindeck. Other than those two cards it was a pretty stock deck. Throughout all of my play testing during the week, the deck dominated most of the match-ups. I beat Jund handily; I mopped the floor with Vampires and handled Polymorph pretty easily. The one deck I forgot to test against was Naya. I honestly wasn’t concerned with it based on the fact that I could beat Jund, and shut down Naya’s Basilisk Collar, Cunning Sparkmage combination with Linvala. I was so confident that Jesse, my team member, was really torn on what to play knowing that my deck was so dominant. In the end he sleeved up a version of Jund that we came up with that gave it a good chance against everything in the meta- with my deck being the exception for the most part.
My night started off with Vampires. I learned a lot about my deck right off the bat in the first game after having my Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch removed without a problem. Mythic has NOTHING if you remove its early threats. After that, I battled through to drop a Baneslayer Angel and took the game. It was game two that I discovered a HUGE flaw with my deck. I had absolutely no removal outside of Celestial Purge in my SB. The purge served me well until my opponent dropped a Malakir Bloodwitch. It then occurred to me that this card was going to be the end of my night when it got played unless I could draw an Eldrazi Conscription. It didn’t happen, and just like that, I was 0-1 on the night. This was also the game where I played my Gideon with a Hexmage on the board in a game where I had complete control.
Match two was against Jund. With confidence I beat my opponent down (with a little luck) in the first game with the Sovereigns of Lost Alara Eldrazi Conscription combo. The second game post SB, my challenger still had no gas. This Jund deck ran very little removal and I was able to run it over pretty easily even after mulliganing down to four during the second game. What did I learn from this win? Honestly, not a whole lot. I had expected to beat Jund in the fashion that I did. If I had to guess, this was a budget Jund deck- there were no Maelstrom Pulses and I didn’t see Sarkhan the Mad. At this point, I was 1-1 and feeling better about myself.
Match three was against my teammate who was 1-1 on the night as well. He wasn’t thrilled at the challenge he was going to face in trying to overcome my deck. It was this match that honestly got me the most upset with myself and really turned everything for the worse. This was the worst luck in a match I had ever had. During game one I managed to pull 1 mana after mulliganing down to five- my hand was Forest, Birds, Heiarach, Baneslayer and Lotus Cobra. I figured I could work with this and that I’d draw some gas along with lands. Boy was I wrong. I didn’t pull a single land, and all of my acceleration was removed early and fast. This game was over by turn six. Game two rolled around and I had to mulligan down to six, but I had a sick draw. I was feeling pretty good about myself. I managed to stick a turn three Gideon, and felt like I had the board locked up. It was then that I had three consecutive Maelstrom Pulses played on me to end my night. Good game, but talk about luck not on my side. Luck is part of Magic, but this loss was hard to swallow. I was now 1-2 on the night, and out of contention for the top four. The good news was that my teammate was primed to make his way in!
Match four was against Naya, and this is where things really took a turn downhill. I won the first game when my opponent got mana screwed. Game two post SB, I got hit with removal and once again, (surprise, surprise), crappy hands. I had to go down to five and was run over by Vengevine. Game three was almost a carbon copy of game two, and my night was over.
Losing sucks…but what can I really take from this? I had a lousy SB for the match-ups I faced. I think in the end if I had had a better SB, I could have taken a game or two, but everybody’s deck was so much better post SB than mine, I didn’t have much of a shot. Luck also did play a big factor throughout my night, so I can’t really learn much from that except to know that if you’re playing Mythic Conscription, you are going to have to do the best with what you’ve got in your opening hand. Luck is a huge factor with this deck because it doesn’t draw extra cards and can lose its momentum VERY fast. In the end, it was a very educational night, I met some new people, and I look forward to going 1-3 again sometime soon. I might also go 4-0, who knows! Until then, remember that losing sucks, but it’s what you can learn from your mistakes and loses that will make you a better player.