Subject: NJ State Championships (plus analysis and a bit of ranting) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:48:11 -0800 From: Yusaku Godai To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Yes, this IS actually a tournament report, but if you don't mind I'm going to rant for a bit, so bear with me. I've noticed a disturbing trend in Magic lately, one that made me back off from playing for a while and pick up other games and hobbies. I got back into the tournament scene again lately because my Magic 'bug' had been itching me on for a while and to be truthful I really missed playing. So I went back to the Gray Matter tournaments I'd been missing for a while, and at first only lamented that the last dealer to have boxes of Time of the Void had sold out of them the week before. *sigh* But I was back! Not that I had done anything appreciable beforehand, but at least I got to play good decks other than those of my few 'core' Magic friends left after the others ran out of interest... and money. So I promptly rolled up my sleeves and proceeded to get to work, losing time and time again. *double-sigh* Not that I lost every game, but I consider a 50/50 record at the fourth round a 'loss' because I'm thoroughly out of contention before getting that far. Then I had a revelation! I noticed that none of the decks I was playing had blue in them--or certainly not enough of them. I'm a blue player at heart; even my earliest decks had it splashed in. (I had a perverse fascination with flying Craw Wurms.) The only non-blue deck I really liked was when I made a weenie black deck with 10 lands win at a good percentage. I admit I made some other decks I thought were fun, but when they tended to lose a lot the fun factor wore off quick. *smirks* Still, now I had my answer--blue is my mistress, I shall not stray again. OK, so now I started to pay more attention to the tournament scene and check out the decks that tended to win and the cards that were most apt to break my own designs. Since I don't play every type of deck at tournaments, and can't even see all of them by wandering about between matches, a lot of it comes from hearsay and online sources. I don't really look at The Dojo, but since two of my friends consider it Mecca, I can hear "the word" on decks regardless. :-) This is about when that disturbing feeling came back to me, and at the core of it was pure evil--the name of that evil is "Sligh". Now as a heavy blue advocate, I naturally hate red. (OK, so I like Mana Clash and Game of Chaos, but who doesn't? :-) ) But this grabs the enjoyment of playing Magic and matching wits against your opponent and sucks it right out of you, giving most people whiplash. I have no doubt every player who goes to tournaments has played this deck often enough to fear it (and fear it rightly), except those who play it themselves--Sligh mirror matches tend to resemble two orcs butting heads (and seem to be won by the first one to get out a Cursed Scroll.) Sligh based his deck on taking advantage of the "mana curve" with the color that could take the fastest advantage of it. It doesn't suck. It wins. That's been proven. Get off it, already. I realize I haven't brought up a topic no one's talked about before, and fully half of you are nodding your heads in agreement while the rest are crying, "Infidel!" I've heard all kinds of talk from all kinds of people, and those that agree with me bring up the same kind of points, and those that play Sligh themselves tend to go the "you're just a sore loser" route. It is, however, another major type who make me feel the worst. They are the ones who play Sligh and don't like it. They play it because it wins, and the cards to make it not win haven't come out yet. I looked to the new Type II for change. Not only was it going to cause the doom of what was probably my most hated deck--ProsBloom--but it removed Fireblast and Hammer from Sligh, and would introduce a whole new--HUGE--set of cards for new use! I got me an advance list of Saga as soon as I could, and poured over the pages. There was the typical number of poor and amusing cards, a few I liked a lot more, and a few I drooled (literally) over. And though I had problems actually noticing cards other than Arcane Laboratory, cards like Douse and Absolute Grace gave me hope that Sligh would be phasing out--or at least down. I had ASSUMED that WotC was paying attention to the dominance of certain decks at tournaments and made cards to provide people with the ability to not HAVE to play those decks to win. Little did I imagine what crack they were smoking in the meantime. I’m not going to go into an in-depth analysis of the leading decks in Type II prior to November; if you’re reading this now, you obviously read the rest of the Dojo and know quite well. Urza’s Saga introduced a number of straight-to-sideboard deck-foilers, and a number of other strong cards to replace what certain decks were losing. Planar Void, Energy Field, and Planar Birth tend to break certain decks (or at least make them think more in construction), and there are a slew of other cards that fit into decks and help them out against their particular nemeses. All in all a decent amount of good cards to go with all the crap you’ll never use. *grin* But one factor throws the supposed balance all askew. I didn't care for Stroke of Genius as soon as I read about it, because although it was blue, whatever rationale WotC had for releasing it sucked. "Yeah, Brainguyser is considered too powerful so only one of it can be used in Type I, so why not make it cost ONE blue so it's splashable in any deck, and let's make it an instant!! Oh, it'll cost one more to balance out..." Um... yeah. I still wasn't looking at the card close enough to realize it replaced Prosperity in a much better form--I was too fascinated with coming up with the best way to use Arcane Laboratory. Plus, when I looked at cards like Time Spiral and Tolarian Academy I just said "hey, that's cool" and went back to my plotting. It wasn't until my friend showed me the Monstrosity that the pit in my stomach opened wide and 'disturbing' feelings went straight to 'horrified'. ProsBloom--a pile that should never have existed--left the environment and the brought it back, only this time 10 times better?!? What the HELL were they thinking? I heard comments like "We playtested the Academy the most to make certain it wouldn't be broken." If that's the case, get new playtesters. Not ONLY did it bring a faster kill than ProsBloom into Type II, but it made Type I decks possible where if you don't have 4 Force of Wills in your deck, you are probably never going to get a turn. (And then your chances are only SLIGHTLY better) The fact that 12 very valuable rares are needed to make the Type II version work doesn't even slow anyone down. This was only the beginning. I was soon introduced to cards like the Great Whale which bring marginally-easy 4th turn infinites to Living Death and can let one mill their opponents' decks as an instant with Corpse Dance and Alter of Dementia. Oath of Druids/no creatures/Yawgmoth’s Will provides a funky 3rd-4th turn kill, which only certain decks are set to stop. (At least WotC headed off the Will/Dark Ritual timing kinks) I seem to remember the day when infinites were not ALLOWED at tournaments. Soon I saw the other elements at work; Academy made white no longer an option. It's simply not fast enough, and disenchants don't pose that much of a threat to it. Black and Sligh's major threat became nearly unplayable. But since Sligh tends to win against Suicide Black ("tends" meaning with about 99% efficiency, unless they happen to have blue in their deck for the sole purpose of getting out Chill—which I have not yet seen), Sligh gained the most converts--those being the ones without enough money or friends to build Academy. Living Death had problems because even if they got out a 3rd-turn Verdant Force, they were probably drawing 285 cards the next round. On the whole, this meant making sure to include Priest of Gix and Great Whale so they have the hope of an infinite to back them up. A couple I saw even included main-deck counterspells. Land Destruction, which should be effective against Academy has problems with Sligh, so I only saw a few of them. White was almost not in attendance. (I didn’t see any, and I only heard of one that my friend played. I had mixed feelings when he beat it with Sligh.) It seemed the only other strong deck type to make it in was Counter/Phoenix. (IMHO the only deck worthy of the top-rung seats it’s gotten. Still… There’s a little too much burn for my tastes. J ) Oh yes… I’m supposed to REPORT on the tournament to make this a tournament report, aren’t I? (I apologize in advance to my opponents. I didn’t bother taking down names because I didn’t expect to write up anything, so I’ll just leave the names out of it entirely) For reference my deck was constructed as follows: 4 Tradewind Riders Sideboard: 4 Wall of Blossoms 1 Ertai, Spell-Killer 2 Wall of Tears 2 Wasteland 1 Ertai, Honky Adept 4 Propaganda 4 Acrane Laboratory 2 Mana Leak 4 Counterspells 4 Annul 4 Force Spike 2 Douse 4 Dismiss 3 Forbid 2 Mana Leak 4 Whispers of the Muse 2 Capsize 1 Grindstone 2 City of Brass 2 Wasteland 4 Skyshroud Forest 15 Island 62 cards—almost unheard of anymore. Basic concept is obvious… annoy your opponent until he concedes. J One does this by making your opponent cast only one spell a turn, stopping the ones that might annoy you, and eventually bouncing everything back into his hand until he can’t do anything. I wish I’d thought of Energy Flux before the tournament, because Annul was mainly only to be used against Academy. I wish I’d had more time to tweak the thing. I also wish I’d feared Sligh more. But c’est la vie… Round one… Fight! My first set started a lot like the week before at Neutral Ground—I played against Academy. I was hoping to break out my shiny-new Academy stamp (with an "X" through it, of course) and was not disappointed. My fights against Academy tend to resemble draw/go because I’m not going to lay down my creatures unless I have no fear of being Power Sunk, and Walls can be fed to Forbid without me worrying about anything. I counter his key card-drawing spells, slap out and guard a Laboratory when able, and eventually get in a Grindstone to wheedle him down while I Forbid the rest. Round two goes much of same, only I don’t have my hand choked up with walls and add some more 1-mana spells that stop his combo from going off. (I learned before now to also stop the Scroll Racks as well. Shutting down any card drawing or manipulation is key.) Arcane Laboratory is suck a lovely card. *smile* Going into round two 2-0, I was feeling pretty good. For the first time in ages everyone I knew and came with had taken their games. This feeling was not to last, as I hit The Deck Of Eight Rares. First game, herr Sligh drew a total of one mana, while I got out a full Tradewind combo by turn 4. Needless to say he yielded. For the second game, the easily-combustible Ertai came out, along with the Grindstone and my Dismisses and two Wastelands, and in went my lower-cost counters, the Props and Douse. Game two was infuriating. I had him behind two Props and a Douse AND a Lab! He couldn’t cast a thing w/o me giving him permission, and he only had enough mana to attack with one or two creatures, and I had out two walls. Unfortunately he’d cast a Scroll when I tapped out for my walls, and a later-turn Fireslinger pinged me for the majority of my life. For no apparent reason my Tradewinds and Capsizes avoided me until the turn I was dead. Round 3 was pretty hairy as well. Unfortunately I’d had to lose 5 life to my City which did NOT help, but I had him behind a Douse, and his lone Fanatic could not attack for fear of Wall of Tears. Bad news—I was at two life. I had enough land to Douse 4 times, but drew no more. He drew into 5 straight threats and made my life go boom. Amusingly enough, all I needed was a Lab and the game was mine—but they avoided me like my Tradewinds did the game before. After a short breather (I somehow extended a game versus Sligh to most of the round) I sat down with a player just returning to the tournament scene. His deck was R/B land destruction with… Dingus Eggs? And Ankhs… And Thumbscrews? I think confusion made me misplay once or twice, but even the Boil he slipped through only hit 3 lands, and I recovered to take the round anyway. My only real scare was a first-turn Ritual-Ritual-Mishra’s Helix he cast, but I had a Force Spike in hand and decided I’d rather not lose the game… Did I ever mention how lovely a card Arcane Laboratory is? Round four I meet—surprise, surprise—an Academy deck. This goes almost like my first Academy matchup, as the Laboratory screws up Academy more than any dinky Pyroblast ever could. I stamp another kill onto my box. Only thing of note coming out of the round were a few observations I made while playing. I’d joking said I figured the decks played at the tournament were 40% Academy, 40% Sligh, and some other random stuff. Then I blinked and looked around me. To my left, Academy was playing Draw/Go; to my right was Academy vs. Sligh. The table in front of my featured a Sligh-mirror match and an Academy vs. Green-pile-of-something. I seemed to be right. !#%*@$!&^ Round five I face off against Skye, one of the friends I came with, and the first Academy advocate I knew. This invariably happens in every tournament we go to. Skye played Eric round three, then me, and then later Paul. Joy. As well, I knew his Academy deck had a main-deck compliment that could frustrate me. (He played against me lots and the week before feared blue more than Sligh… causing him to forget Chills in his sideboard at Neutral Ground and lose only to Sligh. Live and learn. Or die and learn, I might say…) Sorely resisting the temptation to demand back two Academies and two Spirals of mine he was borrowing and sick a judge on him, we got to work—and proceeded to have one of the most moronic match-ups we’d ever had. Round one took a while. I got out a Grindstone, hid behind my Lab, and countered away while milling past his good stuff. He finally got a Turnabout through and went off—only to find that there was nothing to go "off" to. His Spirals were all graveyard-bait, and he had one Windfall with nothing to draw. Oh well… *shrug* Game two he draws bad—I draw worse. Nothing but Dismisses until I get out 3 land, then he Windfalls and I get more crap. Spiral—crap. I was sorta hoping he’d kill me with the 40-card tap/untap my City of Brass combo of style… The third game is much of a repeat. All in all his top-decking skills win out. I think I’d have crushed him if I could only draw a Forbid!! Spikes and Leaks are only good for a limited amount of time… (This began my annoyance at not having 4 Forbids in. Something I shall not be doing again…) Well Skye and Paul rush off all 4-1, and I know I’m out of contention, I stay in anyway since we weren’t going home early. Eric had poorer matchups and lost to Oath/Will/Planar Birth/Rain of Filth which Sligh can do little against except hope they draw unlucky, and lost to Skye because of 1st, 2nd, and 4th-turn Chills. Paul SHOULD have lost to the white-weenie he played against, but owed a lot to facing a guy who decided he’d rather not thing too hard. Anywho, I play Sligh and feel like a rape victim. THAT was fun… *sigh* Three of my friends are in the top eight, and one was barely edged out at nine, so I figured the day still went pretty good. However, Skye and Paul played first game of the Top 8, and Eric and I go out to get food. I come back and say "So who got luckier?" They’re playing the end of game 3, where Skye is at -5 life or somesuch, but was in the middle of going off and would win if he could get it. Paul was lucky as Skye didn’t draw what he needed and collapsed into a puddle of Mogg piss. Paul then went on to beat down two Counter/Phoenix decks in a row—which he should not have been able to do. But they drew poorly and he took full advantage of them whenever they tapped out for a disk. I think his comment at the end was the most appropriate of the day: After blinking a few times and realizing he’d won the NJ State Championships he yelled sarcastically (though I believe half-seriously) "I have NO respect for you guys! How could you let a hack like me beat you?!" That’s as Zen as it gets. *grin* The tournament was at last over and we could go home. Upon reviewing my match-ups and saying "Shit! Academy-Sligh-L.D.-Academy-Academy-Sligh." I was just thoroughly disgusted with the whole day. I knew the main problem with my deck was I STILL didn’t have enough to stop Sligh, since I expected just MAYBE one or two other decks would be there. Possibly. But it was not to be… The lure of those two moronic decks just seems to know no bounds. Academy has too much strength in that it only takes a little bit of tech—them tapping out or being forced to tap out for only a turn—and it can bust out with the win. Sligh’s main strength lies in the fact that it reduces the amount of skill required to build decks—yours or your opponents’—and puts luck into the forefront. The ‘mana curve’ simply means that it busts out fast and has a tendency to keep up with the pain as long as you have cards. But more to the point, it takes the most effective advantage of your opponents’ unluck. They stall on mana for perhaps a turn, and it turns into a 4-5 life swing. If it takes them a few extra turns to set up their combos, they’re probably goblin-fodder. They draw even marginally inappropriate for the situation they’re in, and they’re sucking ash. Suicide Black can do this as well, but lack of direct damage and some HIDEOUS blind spots (spelled "Light of Day") make it less effective. Plus, the whole metagame is skewed because Academy and Sligh are so diametrically opposed. Sideboards now really have specific cards to his just Academy and just Sligh, rather than leaving room for more effective variation on the deck’s theme against the spectrum of decks you meet. Between Sligh, Academy, and Phoenix, the spectrum seems to be just one color—purple. I previewed the newest list of state tournaments and their winners: 2 Counter/Phoenix, 3 Sligh, 5 Academy, and only one other deck type so far (Draw/Go). Looking at the list of tournament reports in total, Academy and Slight make up about half. For the past year, all my friends who were leaving the game and many others were saying Magic would go under soon. Frankly, I scoffed at the notion as I knew the professional circuit would keep interest running strong; but to me, THIS is the true downfall of Magic. Think about it: Are you more likely to get to ProTours playing Sligh or Academy? So far as I know, Type II is not going to get you in. Do you somehow think the difference between a 1680 and 1630 rating is going to get you more babes? Uh… no. Are the prizes for 90% of the tournaments you go to very worthwhile? Foreign boosters are cool, but 98% of the cards you win will still be chaff. (I’ll forgive you if you’re strapped for cash and playing for $1000 pots or something like that. J ) So why the hell ARE you giving up on decks that actually tap into your imagination and copping out on ones that are so mindless? The East is very-well deluged with Sligh and Academy that there’s no room to breathe. This is where I see Magic failing the public, and where I see the easy and fast communication of the internet and various publications more hurtful than helpful. I would have been impressed if my friend came up with the Academy deck, only he just saw the idea on the Dojo and copied it. Along with thousands of other dweebs who got fascinated with the idea. (My guess is all the old ProsBloom players were moping around until they read about Academy and then went hog-wild) To many, the Dojo’s main contributors are looked at like Moses coming down from the mountain. ProTourists who make a comment or two have their suggestions paid attention to like the words of E. F. Hutton. Their words are fact. Who are YOU to deny them? I got annoyed when a year back the only deck that beat mine in a tournament was an exact copy of a ProTour Champion’s. Now, I hear people making fun of others’ ideas because they aren’t on the Dojo or some other site, and scoff at certain modifications to existing decks because they were never used before. Innovation and ingenuity seem to be all but gone—reserved only for the first person to put their deck up on a site. I have a startling NEW idea for everyone—one that will go wholly ignored, I’m sure. Turn off your computer. Get some sleep, hell, get some exercise an fresh air outside! Then, come back and look at your cards again. You know what colors and strategies you like to play—look for what enhances that. You know what cards tend to be the most powerful from a new set—adjust to a new deck and use them to the fullest. Hell, you can even recognize the cheap-ass combos and use them too. But use them YOURSELF! Stop letting luck be the only factor in who wins what. Find out what decks there are by PLAYING them and seeing how you stack up. Nowadays, you pretty much know what your opponent is playing by turn three. The excitement of the game keeps spiraling down, because everyone knows what’s out there and knows how their deck stacks up against the opposition before they start, so games are only a matter of "Yes, I drew well!" or "Shit, I couldn’t get the cards I needed." Most end-games, after the handshake and a hearty "good luck" are griping with your friends about the past match instead of getting to tell about the cool tricks and turns the match took. (I am no exception) But there’s something—even when you lose—about seeing a concept for the first time, and seeing it work that brings back the old excitement of ripping open booster packs of a new set to see what is to be seen. (In my humble fashion, I note many of my opponents compliment my deck—no matter HOW much they had Arcane Laboratory. J ) If you make it into a professional tournament, go for all the cheese you want. You WILL need to study up on what the top decks are, and you WILL need to pick the deck you feel is best able to handle it. But remember—what’s the name of that annoying-as-piss red deck? Sligh? So even though the "NJ States was won by Paul Jordan, playing Sligh" break that comment into its’ base parts. "States won by Sligh." Will your name actually be remembered? The most I would ever wish for in my Magic ‘career’ is to gain renown with a deck then named "Witzling’s Remorse" (OK, so I like lock decks), or even just to add some jank or a solid, unforseen curveball to an existing template and have "Witzling Tech" used in print somewhere. (On second thought, I’ll probably change my name first.) I hope to see your tech on the field. --------------------------------------------------------------------