Titus's Advantage A Magic: The Gathering blog about my thoughts as the rock of our TCG world, a Titus.

See what I did there?

Anyway, back to States. While my ride down was mild-mannered, and I managed about six hours of sleep in the back of the car, I sat in front of my first round opponent as he started playing artifacts, and I just had to laugh.

Game one went to him handily, as in the final turn before I was to kill him, he comboed off and had to kill me with a depleted then revived Tezzeret. Game two was a shock to his system though, because as I shuffled through my sideboard, looking for something to board in against this nightmare match, my mind clicked on the Quest for Ancient secrets. A few fetches and Knight activations later, I had an active Quest. As my opponent tried to go off, I let him read the common enchantment and we went to game three. Of course, I am the one who screws up here, because though I played two quests, I got blown out by double resounding wave and a Day. I was also stuck on three lands, so...

0-1 (1-2)

My opponent in round two seemed like a tightwad of a Valukut player, but I loosened him up, killing him with jokes as well as dudes. He nearly had me in game two, but he was off my four points of damage...not too much to say though, because both games were he plays bad ramp, and I kill him with good stuff.

2-0 (3-2)

Now my opponent for round three? Though it took all match for him to warm up to me, I cracked into his facade in game three after we both got stuck on no lands in one game each. A completely clogged ground left me only an out in the air, but Honor made his Skyfisher big enough to bloc my Emeria Angel, so we sat there looking stupid for a while, him having to draw all four Paths to stall against me in the long game. Of course I had death on board when time was up and I only needed one more attack phase, but, a friend earned is a friend gained, no?

1-1-1 (4-3-1)

Real chill guy like me in round four. His deck, though mono-green looking in game one was in fact R/G not Eldrazi elves. I only found this out because I made him feel at ease after I destroyed him game one. When I say destroyed though, I mean it really ridiculously...as in turn five Overrun, turn six Overrun, and I'm still not dead...More funny part? I had the feeling he had no artifacts before he told me and that I wouldn't need the Pridemages. I mull to four game two and play a quick game three off of Baneslayer, double Journey, double Path...Yeah, she did twenty-five damage, and she's pretty good.

2-1 (6-4-1)

The best part of my match against Turbo Fog round five? In game two where I mise him with a turn one Quest and his concession after he tells me he thought I was G/W/b and that he didn't bring in his hate...of course, triple Pithing Needle and milling away all my Pridemages don't vote well for game three.

1-2 (7-6-1)

I'd like to say, this dude was a douche bag because a Judge called him on his cheating, and though he didn't get DQed for it, he was still a dickbag...Of course I wasn't it it, as I didn't want to play him, so he got me fastlike in two off the back of AJ Vengeance.

0-2 (7-8-1)

As I had no way to top 16, I decided to have fun in my last round, and I found myself why I don't do it more. By Bant Miracle grow, I mean Jace, Jenara, Divination, Mind Spring, and Lorescale Coatl. Man, I wish I would've played the snake, it would've been like a 5/5+ all day. Either way, my more expensive and more powerful cards get me the win over his FNM deck. I did love the dude's deck though, and I might play it for fun soon enough.

2-0 (9-8-1)

Positive for the day, if just barely. But, all's well that plays well. I love States for the fun, not the competition. I already can't wait until next year, where hopefully I'll have some notes.



Speaking of notes, how about a States report from a buddy of mine who top foured?
Alright, I'll work it out and get it posted with the last part of my adventure: the drive home.

______________________________________

Oh, and the mind-taking...



Well?

Alright were did we leave off...Ah, yes, the deck. Well, to begin with, I made my deck from a Frank Karsten-like hybridazation of Martin Juza's Worlds G/W/b deck and LSV's in work G/W. Last minute changes made the deck into this:

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
2 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
5 [ZEN] Plains (1)
6 [ZEN] Forest (1)
2 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
1 [ZEN] Island (3)
3 [ZEN] Marsh Flats

// Creatures
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
3 [ALA] Battlegrace Angel
3 [M10] Master of the Wild Hunt
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
3 [M10] Birds of Paradise
2 [CFX] Thornling
4 [ZEN] Emeria Angel
3 [ALA] Rhox War Monk (Defiantly an under-performer. Might be changing to only G/W in the main)
1 [M10] Baneslayer Angel (Was a fourth Master, but her power alone won me a game with a hand full of removal, so mise...)

// Spells
2 [ZEN] Journey to Nowhere
3 [ZEN] Vines of Vastwood
3 [CFX] Path to Exile

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ZEN] Day of Judgment (Maybe should have probably been Telemin Performance)
SB: 1 [ARB] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [CFX] Wall of Reverence
SB: 2 [ARB] Grizzled Leotau
SB: 4 [ZEN] Quest for Ancient Secrets
SB: 3 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage

The Baneslayer change was actually really powerful in the end, so I was fine with it, and the swap from the Sledge in the sideboard to the Needle was after realizing I only had the Sledge in my SB because of the G/W mirror. The addition of more fetchlands was strictly a power call because I wanted 4/4 Knights on turn two...

For a quick note before we go into an overview of the decks that were played at my states, I just was to shout out to my buddy Doug who lent me nearly all the money in this deck. Without him, I'm sure I would've had to take something sub-par. Thanks again!

I feel as if I should give a small listing of the decks my group played as well, because though some of them did badly, good ideas abounded. With two Jund, two Grixis control, a Spread 'Em, two Naya Lightsaber, and my deck, you can probably tell who the more fun oriented players are in my group...

Regardless, my matches were as followed:

Round 1 Time Sieve
Round 2 Valukut Combo
Round 3 8 Land WW
Round 4 G/R (not) Eldrazi Elves
Round 5 Turbo Fog
Round 6 UWr Control ala Pedro Rodrigez
Round 7 Bant Miracle Grow

Hmm...round one vs the deck I knew would be there...and then round five against a deck I feared I couldn't beat? I think this my be a good point to put an elipsis and start a tournament report in my next post.

...,
~BTsume

Here we go...

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
2 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
5 [ZEN] Plains (1)
6 [ZEN] Forest (1)
2 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
1 [ZEN] Island (3)
3 [ZEN] Marsh Flats

// Creatures
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
3 [ALA] Battlegrace Angel
4 [M10] Master of the Wild Hunt
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
3 [M10] Birds of Paradise
2 [CFX] Thornling
4 [ZEN] Emeria Angel
3 [ALA] Rhox War Monk

// Spells
2 [ZEN] Journey to Nowhere
3 [ZEN] Vines of Vastwood
3 [CFX] Path to Exile

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ZEN] Day of Judgment
SB: 1 [ARB] Behemoth Sledge
SB: 3 [CFX] Wall of Reverence
SB: 2 [ARB] Grizzled Leotau
SB: 4 [ZEN] Quest for Ancient Secrets
SB: 3 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage


_______________________________________

I'll explain everything later, but this post is more for me then you.

(Before I get into this post, I'd like to set a note for myself...How much of a correlation between the money you spend on a format and the success you achieve exists? Further, which format is the most cheap-per win percentage.)

Now then, as the title suggests, my G/W deck has been proving to be a bit lackluster following a few more weeks of testing. With Zendikar, I've added Emeria Angel, Captain of the Watch, Mycoid Shepard, and contemplated red, blue, and black splashes...but all these have proved to only sure up places where I was strong anyway, or fail to meet my goals for them. With that in mind, I went over my options for color changing again and boiled it down to it's essentials.

Red
+Burn (Bolt, Punishing Fire, Burst lightning)
+Uril, the Miststalker
+Sweepers (Pyroclasm, Fallout)

Black
+Removal (Pulse, Doom Blade)
+Discard (Hippy, Duress)
+Putrid Leech

Blue
+Removal (Bant Charm)
+Counterspells (Negate, Remove Soul, Flashfreeze)
+Rhox War Monk

This little fight has been going on in my head for weeks now, and I can't figure out truly which one would be better. I pride myself on being able to understand the metagame, don'tcha know. So, why not find a list of possible decks to face in the Type 2 metagame, add in a few Teir 2 rougish decks, and try to find which of the three would be best adept at dealing with that. So, I did just that:

Jund
4 color Cascade
Vampires
4 Color Control
Naya Zoo
Monored
Elf green
Planeswalker Control
R/W control
Bushwacker
Time Sieve (You don't believe me yet, do you!)
Dredge
Bant
Mono White Control
Mono Blue Polymorph
Soldiers
U/W Control
GWB Knight
And...

Is that all? Jeez. It's like we have a diverse meta or something...

Anyway, I'm not going to cover every deck specifically (Maybe I should), but instead make a few generalizations that might come back and bite me.

Against aggro decks, Bant charm is a strictly better O-ring, as they can't really win outside the red zone. War Monk is also just huge in the butt. Red has removal for the earlier guys, but I have to assume things will have four power eventually, and my deck would have to preform well even with it. Smaller aggro decks, like Bushwacker and Zoo though, would be fearful of sweepers. Black can disrupt, gaining me advantage, as well as use cheap removal on most aggro strategies, but black itself lends towards a more aggressive ideology, and I don't think I'll be able to out race Bushwacker...

Versus Control, Red obviously fails pretty hard. I'd rather be making threats then casting spells which don't do anything to their fatties or, if game winning, would only get countered anyway. Black has promise, allowing disruption to slow their plans enough to play my own game of fatty fatty boom boom, plus removal for a 'walker is great when I can also have removal for Baneslayer in the same card. Blue, gives me a good hope with counter spells, even letting bant charm get more action, but without direct removal for a walker all the Rhox War Monks in the world will continue to die, and my losses would be immanent.

Combo is a strange beast, and though each of the colors fail in similar ways: Black's removal doesn't work, blue's counters are on the wrong side of threats and answers, and red's threats aren't good or fast enough. Though each color does get a mark for having a somewhat idea on how to tackle the issue, Red's burn goes to the face, Black disruption could let me get lucky, and blue counters (though not great for the matches) are there and available.

Well, with that out of the way, let create a chart showing the value of the color verses the type of deck, with a correlation of how many decks of that type there are in the environment:


Aggro: Vampires, Naya Zoo, Monored, Elf green, Bushwacker, Bant, Soldiers, GWB Knight. Final Count: 8/ 17 ~ 47%

Control: 4 color Cascade, 4 Color Control, Planeswalker Control, R/W control, U/W Control, Mono White Control. Final Count: 6/ 17 ~ 35%

Combo: Time Sieve, Dredge, Mono Blue Polymorph. Final Count: 3/ 17 ~ 18%
Note: some deck fall into multiple categories, thus these results may be a bit skewed, but I tried to place each deck where it felt like it should be.


Well, now that we've done that, we need to quantitate how each color splash would preform against each archetype:

Aggro Control Combo
Black: 7/10 8/10 7/10
Blue: 8/10 6/10 7/10
Red: 6/10 3/10 5/10

Note: These are my guesses on how much each color would allow my deck to preform better against the mentioned deck types.

Okay, so aggro is roughly 47% of the field, control 35%, and combo 18%. This is where my math might fall apart, so if I'm wrong, point it out in the comments.

So, with Blue leading against Aggro, Black in control, and the two sharing the same score in Combo, it's really close. Blue's lead in aggro is only one point, while black leads by two in control. However, there are more aggro in the meta so the two are stalemated. Is the aggro match really the most important, or are most of the tier two decks just in there? Well, I figure I can contemplate on this while I'm testing in the next few weeks and figure it out some more. I should have my final choice for color addition by the end of the month, just in time for States on Dec. 5th (YAY! I love States a lot for some reason) Either way, because hopefully I'll be post a lot more on what I'm doing for the run up, as well as weekly or even daily deck lists.

Until then, keep rocking.

Time Sieve 2.0 by Bill Stark of thestarkingtonpost.com

8 Island
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
3 Plains
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Fieldmist Borderpost

4 Glassdust Hulk
4 Architects of Will

4 Angelsong
4 Time Sieve
4 Time Warp
4 Open the Vaults

4 Kaleidostone
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren

Sideboard:
4 Flashfreeze
4 Dispeller’s Capsule
3 Duress
4 Day of Judgment

20/20 Ledgendary, Flying, Indestructible critters and wins on turn two?

Well then, how about this from LSV at PT: Austin...



Wow, I remember back when Ether Snap was a good enough combo with the card. Let's see how this diamond in the rough works out over the next few days, eh?

//Dark Depths by LSV

// Lands
3 [RAV] Watery Grave
4 [CS] Dark Depths
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1)
4 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [FUT] River of Tears
3 [FUT] Tolaria West
4 [SHM] Sunken Ruins

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique

// Spells
3 [GP] Repeal
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [RAV] Muddle the Mixture
3 [SHM] Beseech the Queen

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [LRW] Sower of Temptation
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [M10] Doom Blade
SB: 2 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 2 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 4 [MOR] Bitterblossom

Alright, I somewhat lost my notes for the FMN, so what we're going to do is a video deck-tech for my new standard deck.



Enjoy and decklist is below.

//GW by BTsume

// Lands
9 [ARE] Forest (4)
2 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
5 [ARE] Plains (8)
4 [M10] Sunpetal Grove
2 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats

// Creatures
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [M10] Llanowar Elves
4 [CFX] Thornling
3 [M10] Great Sable Stag
3 [M10] Baneslayer Angel

// Spells
3 [M10] Garruk Wildspeaker
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
2 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
2 [ARB] Behemoth Sledge
3 [M10] Celestial Purge

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 3 [ARB] Dauntless Escort
SB: 2 [CFX] Martial Coup
SB: 3 [ARB] Captured Sunlight
SB: 3 [M10] Pithing Needle

Hmm. Just an interesting and quick note on Rosewater's artical...












































A slpash from Maro's article, when he was referring to Zendikar...The art is defiantly more than just a look-a-like thing, so, keep your minds open, people.