From: elihu feustel Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Subject: Sands at Indy PTQ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 18:22:22 +0000 I started running B/W/u sands about 2 months ago, and had constantly been tweaking it. I made final 8 at Origins and Lansing, and finally qualified in Indy with it. The deck I ran was: 4 Sands 4 Equipoise 4 Vampiric Tutors 4 Englightened tutors 3 sage owls 2 tidal waves 2 mangara's blessings 2 wands of denial 2 coercions 4 dark rituals 1 miser's cage 2 desolation 4 crystal veins 6 swamps 6 plains 1 island 3 lotus vales 4 gemstone mines 2 undiscovered paradises SB: 3 disenchants 1 soul echo 2 mangara's blessings 3 resistance fighters 1 wand of denial 2 coercions 1 argivian find 2 city of solitude I think the sands deck is the strongest deck in the environment if you can play it properly. Because it is so different from the environment, you will usually win the first game. In the last 3 ptqs, I was 24-3 in the first game. That means the other players HAVE to rely on their sideboards to win two matches, regardless of what your sideboard is. A sideboard that is effective against the sands deck will cripple them against most other decks. The sands deck's best matchup is against mono-blue. My match record against that was 10-0. Blue's assault is too slow, which gives the sands more time to setup. The sands deck I start has 20 threats that a blue player might counter (although a tutor burns up 2 of those). If he is running 8 counterspells and 2 boomerangs, I gain a unmerical advantage with each turn; even more if a wand of denial hits the board. The only games I ever lost were to land screw after getting a vale boomeranged. Ken Wallach's blue deck is not included in this group though... A blue deck will lose any long game, unless he keeps 1 or 2 ophidians in play. 1 makes a good game, and 2 gives the advantage to the blue deck. Equipoise is very disruptive against a blue deck. Once I get that, they can't counter the sands, because I don't usually have more than 1-2 lands in play. Blue's best sideboard against sands are mystic veils. Game 2, you always have to sideboard in 2 disenchants against any deck but straight red or straight black. The sand's other strong matchup is against necratog (b/u or b/u/r). Against these decks, a soft lock wins the first match. I get a soft lock about 75% of the time by turn 4, and these decks don't kill until turn 6-7 usually. Anytime they are running black, you have to sideboard in soul echo for game 2. Brian Kellenburger, one of my teammates, had this bad havit of ritualing out a forsaken waste after I thought I had beaten a practice deck. Another strong card for necratog is spatial binding. If you get that off, and he isn't running disenchants in the second game, you might just win. The last real sideboard card for b/u or even U is vision charm. Playtesting against necratog with 3 spatial bindings and 4 vision charms was about a 50/50 match. Sands' worst matchup is straight red with lots of cheese. If they have low casting cost creatures (1 or 2), incinerates, fireblasts, AND thunderbolts, I will win the first game about 40% of the time. A slower red deck, or with less cheese will give me about a 60%. If you are running 8 cheese, you can count on 8-10 points of burn damage by turn 7, when I usually get the hard lock. A turn one keeper, turn 2 infantry, and I have taken 9 points of creature damage if I don't get a speed-bump out. On a positive note, red has little sideboard that matters. Touchstones don't usually matter, because they phase out before the sands hit. They only matter if you lay them AFTER the sands is played, but BEFORE the land disappears. The most interesting matchup is sands vs. sands. I had to play Randy (whose last name escapes me) in the semis in Indy, and he was running a similar sands deck, but with about 12 cards different. The first game is critical because there is hardly ever enough time for the second. The most important thing is to get the equipoise out. If you do, his sands is just as good as your own. If both players have equipoise out and no artifcats, the first player to lay sands loses. This happened in the first game against Randy. He had a wand of denial, and sands out. I target myself with equipoise to keep all his stuff in play. I lay my own wand of denial. Next turn, I phase out his wand, leaving him the sands. I can always keep my wand in. 40 turns later, he gets carded first. If you play the second game, it is a game of "chicken". Whoever lays the first sand might lose. So, you force your opponent to do so by putting out a creature. If he lays the sands, you lay a wand. But yuo can't deny TOO many cards, or he might kill YOU iwth a sage owl or steel golem. I have to say thanks to Tobey Tamber for ripping me on even considering W/B sands in mirvislite. "Taniwha? Bah, too slow! Counterspells? for WIMPS!" Elihu "scrub" Feustel