Breaking Pointless Formats

The New Phyrexia release events were this past weekend, where I took part in one full block draft (awesome) and several triple New Phyrexia ones (awful).

So most of my time was spent playing a terrible format that won't ever be relevant again, which you wouldn't normally think of as fun. On the other hand, my skill at accurately evaluating new cards usually gives me an edge over a lot of people at the beginning of a format (witness my large collection of pre-release t-shirts (before Wizards discontinued these prizes a couple of years ago (boo!))).

I thought it would be entertaining to put up a couple of the decks I drafted, each of which highlights some things to bear in mind when considering new formats.

NNN Draft Deck One (Steve Deck Goes 2-1)
7 Mountain	4 Gitaxian Probe
9 Island	2 Mutagenic Growth
16 Lands	1 Psychic Barrier
	1 Shrine of Burning Rage
7 Blighted Agent	1 Volt Charge
2 Razor Swine	9 Other Spells
2 Viral Drake
3 Pith Driller
1 Chained Throatseeker
15 Creatures

This deck highlights one of the major issues with small set drafts, which is the possibility to pick up ridiculous numbers of the same card. The only "real" format where this has been a factor before was triple Coldsnap, which was also one of the most boring non-core set formats ever.*

--- Aside ---

* Coldsnap drafting guide:

• Open booster, check for one of the "draft around me cards".
• If you have one; take it and pray that nobody else is trying to draft that deck.
• Otherwise; you're screwed, better luck next draft!

--- End aside ---

In this case, I quickly abandoned my first pick when I received second and third pick Viral Drake, then a selection of Agents, Probes and Swines. By the end of pack one I had four Blighted Agent and two each of Razor Swine and Gitaxian Probe. The second and third packs consisted of picking up some removal spells while tabling the obviously undervalued Agents.

The one match I lost was to a rather freakish game one where I only drew two infect creatures, and a game two that I punted by failing to remember that Sword of War and Peace deals damage equal to the cards in my hand. (And not my opponent's as I had thought, which meant that instead of just extending my clock by a turn and countering his last creature, I left myself one life short to play a lethal Mutagenic Growth and died.)

The other games proceeded much as you would expect for a deck with seven upgraded Plague Stingers.

That was a fine draft, but we can do better!

NNN Draft Deck Two (Steve Deck Breaks the Format)
4 Swamp	2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mountain	1 Shrine of Burning Rage
9 Island	1 Mycosynth Wellspring
17 Lands	2 Tezzeret's Gambit
	1 Artillerize
2 Vault Skirge	2 Rage Extractor
1 Immolating Souleater	9 Other Spells
4 Spined Thopter
2 Sickle Slicer
2 Impaler Shrike
2 Pith Driller
1 Slash Panther
14 Creatures

The important lesson with this deck is that you need to evaluate every card in the context of the environment you are playing it in, and also the other cards you've already drafted.

A clear example of the first principle can be seen here with Rage Extractor; in normal Scars block drafting this card is underwhelming, with rarely more than four or five cards in a deck that would trigger it. As a result of needing Phyrexian mana cards to give it any value at all, it is necessarily a late pick (probably no earlier than eighth, and even then only in extreme circumstances or out of a very weak pack). But in a format where you are guaranteed another two packs full of Phyrexian goodness (hmm, maybe that should just be "Phyrexian-ness") in addition to whatever you already have, this card becomes a legitimate first pick.

Look at the rest of the list for examples of how card values change depending on your deck. Vault Skirge and Spined Thopter are fine creatures normally, but become insanely attractive when they can kill an opposing man just by being played. I noramlly dislike Slash Panther, but with a free Lava Axe stapled on I'm happy to run it. Pith Driller is already a high pick, but is upgraded to a three-for-one with the Extractor. Gitaxian Probe and Tezzeret's Gambit both search for Rage Extractor and become turbo-charged with one already in play ("Tezzeret's Gambit, deal four to this guy, draw two cards and proliferate a second counter onto this other guy" was pretty close to a four mana Cruel Ultimatum).

Another notable point about the deck was how "greedy" you could be with Phyrexian mana cards. This is notionally a three colour deck, but only three cards in the list actually require coloured mana to cast. In fact, in most early game situations it seems best to play the Phyrexian cards as aggressively as possible. A turn one of Gitaxian Probe, Island, Vault Skirge may leave you at sixteen life, but the Skirge will start gaining that back unless dealt with, and the follow up Spined Thopter on turn two represents an awful lot of pressure. I'm looking forward to trying to apply this to Standard or Block constructed, where a more consistent curve of creatures is available and don't necessarily interfere with the manabase required to play a Tempered Steel (for instance) on time.

Annoying "Why Did I Have to Open This Booster in a Draft" Moment of the Day

This award goes to Rich Tinsley, who cracked the (quite literally) mythical double Batterskull booster. The annoyance was slightly lessened by the fact that he was passing to his son Rob.

The story gets even better when we discover that Rob had already first picked a Batterskull of his own. All reports point to the fact that this was, indeed, nice.

Steve

Standard Koth Big Red

Welcome back!

What's the best deck to play in a PTQ? Well for starters you should probably be playing the consensus best deck, if there is one. If one particular strategy is dominating top 8s and taking down tournament after tournament you'd be a fool not to sleeve it up. On the other hand, a deck that is well positioned to beat the best deck and has a cogent plan against the rest of the meta game can also be a valid choice. The important stuff? Knowing your deck inside and out. Having tested the main matchups and knowing your sideboard strategies. Working out what cards are blahblahblahblahblah

Let me tell you something; after a hard day trying to grind through 9 rounds at GP London with a mediocre pool, the last thing I wanted to do was embark on 7 rounds of Caw-Blade mirrors.

Winning is fine, but what a lot of people seem to forget is that if you aren't having fun you're doing it wrong. No matter how good you think you are, only one person is getting that plane ticket, so you'd better make sure that winning isn't the only way you're enjoying the tournament experience.

Let me outline the metaphorical train of my thoughts while sitting on the quite literal morning train into London:

• Planeswalkers are fun.
• Koth is a planeswalker I haven't played with before.
• Big creatures are fun.
• Koth allows you to play big creatures.
• Artifacts allow you to play Koth and big creatures faster.
• Tumble magnet is the best card ever.
• Lots of artifacts let you bring back Kuldotha Phoenix against control.
• Koth and Kuldotha Phoenix are good answers to Jace.
• Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil Engine are good answers to aggro.
• Precursor Golem has been seeing play in RUG decks as an answer to Caw-Blade.
• Mimic Vat is pretty good in a format dominated by creatures with little artifact removal.
• Palladium Myr can take you to six mana on turn 4.

I knocked together a basic list and hit the tournament. Obviously in a PTQ where seven of the top 8 decks were Caw-Blade, I didn't face it once. What I did find was:

• Koth is awesome, and the deck would regularly use all three of his abilities.
• Wurmcoil Engine is fantastic against aggro decks, as is Inferno Titan.
• Precursor Golem is awkward when four of the five decks you face contain Lightning Bolt.
• Tumble Magnet is the best card ever.
• The deck can run out of steam in the midgame.
• Contagion Clasp remains excellent in the format.
• Non-creature mana acceleration is preferable when you need it to stick.

The main worry with the deck was a lack of card selection, that would leave you living off the top deck after playing out your hand early. The obvious solution was to obviously go blue, obviously...

Steve Deck Wins
4 Scalding Tarn	4 Preordain	3 Crush
4 Tectonic Edge	4 Galvanic Blast	3 Arc Trail
2 Island	1 Lightning Bolt	3 Slagstorm
14 Mountain	4 Everflowing Chalice	2 Precursor Golem
24 Lands	4 Sphere of the Suns	1 Kuldotha Phoenix
	4 Contagion Clasp	1 Mimic Vat
1 Kuldotha Phoenix	3 Tumble Magnet	1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Wurmcoil Engine	4 Koth of the Hammer	1 Inferno Titan
3 Inferno Titan	1 Red Sun's Zenith	15 Sideboard Cards
7 Creatures	29 Other Spells

The Preordains help a lot in game 1, where the deck plays almost like combo. The aim is to get a quick Koth into a titan of some sort, and Preordain helps assemble the various pieces. Plan B is to control their early creatures, and use Contagion Clasp to ultimate Koth the turn after you play him.

Unlike decks where blue is a main colour, Preordain can often come out after sideboarding for more match specific cards. This is especially true against creature decks where you just change to an infinite removal control deck.

Control

I've somehow managed to dodge all the Caw-Blade/UB Control decks while playing this deck in tournaments so far, but the test games I've played have been promising. Koth means they can't ever tap out for Jace unless they keep blockers, and demands they deal with him as his ultimate is pretty much GG.

My sideboard plan for Caw-Blade is to remove the Wurmcoil Engines, which are weak against Jace, and bring in the second Phoenix and Precursor Golems in their place. Crush comes in primarily as an answer to Tumble Magnet, but can also take out a sword if they're all in on that plan. The Arc Trails and Slagstorm also come in to contain a quick rush with Squadron Hawks, and give us options against planeswalkers. I take out the Preordains, Sphere of the Suns and a Clasp for these, as the game becomes about controlling their ability to hit you. Kuldotha Phoenix gives you long game advantage. Once you start proliferating your Tumble Magnets are better than theirs, and Chalices mean that Mana Leaks and Spell Pierces will quickly become dead draws for them.

With U/B, it depends on their removal. If they're on Doom Blade the Precursor Golems stay in the board, but against Go for the Throat I'll bring them in for some Inferno Titans. In either case, Kuldotha Phoenix and Mimic Vat come in as long game plans. I like to bring in one or two Slagstorms for Grave Titans, but other than that it depends on the build - Crush if they're on Tumble Magnet, switching the numbers of Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil Engine based on how they play, and so on. The Preordains still pull a lot of weight in game two, so I tend to leave these in and remove the Galvanic Blasts, then trim some numbers to make room for the sideboard cards.

Aggro

Against Boros the first game is relatively even, and largely comes down to how your early removal matches up to their one drops. The goal is to stabilise somewhere around 10 life and then ranch them with Wurmcoil Engine. Ultimating Koth is also good against them, but make sure you plan against a surprise Hero of Oxid Ridge showing up to ruin the party.

Their main plan is similar to Caw-Blade, which means a lot of the same sideboard cards are good against them. I take out Kuldotha Phoenix, Preordain, Sphere of the Suns and one Contagion Clasp and bring in the fourth Wurmcoil and Titan, Mimic Vat and the removal spells. You are most definitely the control deck, and just care about keeping your life total high enough to land a titan. They have a lot of equipment, but you really don't care about it, so I'd only bring in Crush if they show a lot of Tumble Magnets.

The other aggro match ups go much the same way. The only deck I've found real issues against is Tempered Steel; if they have a quick Tempered Steel the game becomes almost unwinnable, especially if they have multiple Glint Hawk Idols. If they don't find it you shouldn't have much trouble smashing their crappy little dudes up with your monsters. This is the reason I hate playing gimicky decks that rely completely on resolving a particular card, but it isn't played enough to actually worry about.

Ramp

So, the problem with this strategy? It has a terrible matchup against the green ramp decks. You have 9 ways to kill a turn two Lotus Cobra, but Overgrown Battlement is going to live every single time. You also have no way to interact with their Explores or Harrows, which leaves you in the position of hoping they fail to draw their threats.

RUG falls somewhere between the ramp decks and control. You can often control or match their acceleration, in which case the game becomes a competition to see who has the biggest titan. Just slap them out on the table and get a ruler.

Awkward.

Still, I'd rather have a bad Valakut matchup than a bad Caw-Blade matchup in the current meta game.

New Phyrexia

There are a few cards I'm interested to try in this deck from New Phyrexia. The first two are Volt Charge and Tezzeret's Gambit, both of which do something this deck already wants to do with proliferate tacked on. In this deck proliferate is usually worth at least a card, so these become pretty good value. Tezzeret's Gambit is particularly exciting as we would prefer the raw card advantage to the more subtle Preordain, and the option of paying life puts less of a strain on our mana to support the blue spell.

The third card is Karn Liberated, and I have a feeling this could well be the best deck to support him. We can play Karn on turn 5 with a Chalice into Koth draw, and have the proliferate effects to keep him powered up even if we have to use his Vindicate ability first.

But for now? If you want a fun deck to play, this is a good place to start.

If you want to win?

Well, the Preordains can stay, but you'll need to get some birds and artificers to replace the giants and wurms...

Steve