From: edt@admin.lsa.umich.edu (Eric Taylor)
Subject: Re: Tourney Report for Chicago PTQ in Columbus on July 5
Date: 8 Jul 1997 18:38:59 GMT

Matthew Baranowski (mpbarano@students.wisc.edu) wrote:
: I have a few questions about the Maro-Armor Decks. I was a little 
: surprised to see two of them in the finals.  Perhaps you have some 
: insights on this since you played one.

: You wrote in your report,  "By far,the most common color combination was 
: r/u/b....a type of good stuff deck.  Red for burn, blue for manowar, 
: black for wheenies and nekrataal." I realize that the Maro-Armor was on 
: the falcons, but when the most common decks ran Incerate, ManoWar, and 
: Nekrataal, how did Maro Armor do much of anything? You said some ofthe 
: decks ran Ward of Lights, I can see that making a difference, but it just 
: seems that there are too many obstacles to make Maro Armor consistant.

I was in Columbus (and Detroit the next day), finished 3-2 (and
dropped) in Columbus, and 5-1-1 for 8th place in Detroit.

Here's the deal with the Maro-Armor decks.

There are basically two types.  One is a mono-white deck that some
people were calling the mana-white deck (I assume because it ran mana
web in the deck, but it may have been in the sideboard because I never
saw it), and another type which contained blue, and possibly other
colors.

Team Anonymous (from near Chicago) were nearly all running the same
deck, with blue/red/black, all the good stuff from each other, mix and
match as you choose.  I don't remember them having an exact deck type
(they seemed to do a lot of individual customization) and since none of
them were able to qualify in Columbus nor in Detroit I imagine they
will be making some changes in their team deck for their next debut.

You might think that because TA had 3 colors (and sometimes 4) that it
would not be affected much by the prot/bend or ward of lights.

Well, you would be right.  Unless they got a bad draw, they would
normally be able to do very well against the maro-skin decks.  However,
even though TA had the most common deck type, the red/black/blue didn't
even make up 25% of of the field.  There were so many deck types (from
red/green to mono-black to pure red to pure green) that maro-skin/prot
decks weren't getting killed by the multi-color designs.  Maro-skin
decks were probably the 2nd most common after R/B/U.

In general the mono-white ward of lights/maro-skin/duskrider falcon/
freewind falcon/ward of lights/tith/abeyance deck was much stronger
than the blue-white mind bend/hazerider drake/duskrider/falcon/freewind
falcon/maro-skin/ward of lights deck, because you can serve a better
beatdown with the abeyance and tithe than you can with hazeriders and
mind bends.

However, if you're facing a multi-color deck with 3 or 4 colors, I
imagine it may be better to be able to mind-bend your creatures to give
them more protection from the variety of colors.

There were a lot of people who were playing the maro-skin decks who
weren't that proficient with the deck (i.e. they never realized that
you can play ward of lights as an instant).  I heard that this deck
archetype was on the internet in the play channels for irc and from
there it got passed around.  It is also one of those decks that
everyone thinks of and makes, a case of convergent deck design.

In Columbus I played a mono-blue of Pat Chapin's creation and the 1st
round I played against one of these maro-skin decks.  I have never been
so screwed in a magic game in my life.  There was absolutely no play I
could make, no sideboarding I could do, nothing that would save me from
this thing.  I looked in my sideboard and tried to find my biskelions
but no I had only had suq-ata firewalkers.  Suqata firewalkers can't
ping a flying prot-blue creature with maro skin.  Floodgate can't even
do damage to a flying creature.  It was bad medicine and I was ruined
for the day after that first game.  The maro-skin decks do not suck.
They kill the mono-color deck (and usually the two color decks) so
dead.  And even against the multi color decks they have a good chance.
After the tournament I threw the mono-blue in the garbage can and took
out another deck of mine I had made two months ago (which surprise had
more than one color) and played it in Detroit, but as fate would have
it, there weren't any of these ward of light/maro skins in Detroit at
all (there were only 50 or so people).  I know mono-blue can work, but
you have to have three things to make sure you can beat these maro-skin
decks: 1) boomerange for the maro-skin, 2) serrated biskelions for the
prot fliers, and 3) vodalion illusionist to phase out the fliers in
reponse to him putting on a ward or mind bend, but as for me, I'm
giving up on anything that has counterspells and will go against my
natural inclinations to play control, and play a deck that does only
one thing -- deliver a beatdown.

Mirvis-Lite: it's all about the beatdown.

--- Eric