I’ve started playing out some of these matches. It’s taking longer than I had expected, mainly because we need more practice games to get comfortable with the decks. I also want to talk about some other happenings – Vintage, how bizarre MTGO drafts are during release events, City Champs, the Magic Scholarship Series and so on, but that will have to wait.
This article is all about the Ultimate Extended Tourney.
I had started playing this out on MWS. I soon discovered two things. First, it just feels wrong – to me at least – to play Trix and so forth electronically. I was finding the interface just distracting enough that I wasn’t playing at my best. Second, I found that I wanted to play at other places: at the stores, during lunchtime at work (no, installing MWS on my work computer was not the answer) and so forth. So I put the decks together.
Well, sort of. I don’t have the cards to make a half dozen decks all with Force of Will. I proxy, and I use Adrian Sullivan grid method. Proxies are less distracting. I had a long conference call at work, an old notepad and some pens, so tore off 60 sheets of paper, scribbled four cards onto each piece of notepaper and had decks. I tucked them in sleeves with old commons when I got home. So here’s what games look like: Trix has cast Duress against Twiddle Desire, and yanked a Meditate. Here are the cards.
The Trix versus Twiddle matchup is showing just how bizarre some of these games are. I’m pretty comfortable with Trix, and okay with Twiddle/Desire, but the situations that come up are strange. Here’s an example:
Assume you have an opening hand with Underground Sea, Gemstone Mine, two Dark Ritual, Necro, Donate, Mana Vault. You are playing against Twiddle, which has opened with Sapprazan Skerry. Normally, you start with Sea, Ritual, Duress, Ritual, Necro, Vault, and a victory lap. Against Twiddle/Desire, do you hang the Mana Vault out there? Will they Twiddle it? If they have a Twiddle, is Twiddling the Vault the right play? When you Duress, if you see Twiddle, Diminishing Returns, Tinker and lands, what’s the right card to take?
I’m finding that we have to play a bunch of games with the decks just to get a handle on the matchups, before playing the tournament games.
Niko asked, recently, “So, who do you have playing those decks. They have to be really good. Are they?”
My answer, “Well, I’m involved, so the answer is probably ‘no.’” But I’m working on it. I’m also allowing discussion and take-backs. The emphasis is on perfect play, or as close to perfect as we can get.
Here’s one matchup that I have a good handle on, and results.
Enchantress versus U/W Tron
Pregame analysis: Looking over the decklists, I thing Enchantress has to be the heavy favorite here. U/W Tron has two probable routes to victory. First, Enchantress relies on resolving a couple key spells. The Enchantress and Enchantress’s Presence are important, but the deck cannot win unless it sticks Words of Wind. If it does get that to resolve, it will quickly begin replacing draws with bouncing stuff, and it can easily get an opposing deck to pick up all its permanents. If U/W Tron can stop the Words, it could win.
Second, if Tron can get a Mindslaver to resolve, it has a reasonable chance of making Enchantress deck itself – or at least draw a ton of cards, bounce all the useful stuff, and discard those cards. Decree of Justice is also useful – it can create a lot of extra tokens that can be bounced.
I’m assuming that everyone that has been playing or watching Extended this season knows how the U/W Tron plays. Enchantress is a combo deck, not beatdown. It is trying to get some lands in play that tap for more than one mana, Words of Wind and draw triggers – and a Cloud of Fairies. Here’s how it works.
Enchantress has the following in play:
Serra’s Sanctum
Island enchanted with Wild Growth
Two Argothian Enchantresses
Words of Wind.
* Enchantress casts Cloud of Fairies, tapping and untapping the two lands, and leaving G2 in the mana pool..
* Enchantress casts another Wild Growth, targeting Island.
* Both Enchantresses trigger, and Words of Wind replaces both draws with “all players return a permanent to hand.” Enchantress returns Cloud of Fairies and the Wild Growth in play.
* Finally, the Wild Growth on the stack resolves.
With that, we are back at the starting point, but all opponents have two fewer permanents in play. Enchantress, of course, can rinse and repeat until opponents have no permanents at all in play – at which point it can go back to drawing cards.
Game 1 looked pretty good for U/W Tron. Tron opened with a Hallowed Fountain, and Condescended an Argothian Enchantress on turn 2. Enchantress got a bit land flooded, but had resolved a Trade Routes, which helps with land screw. U/W Tron dug with Court Hussar going, and dropped Mindslaver turn 5. Enchantress has a Wall of Blossoms and tried to dig, and managed an Enchantress’s Presence, Serra’s Sanctum, Wild Growth, and Fertile Ground, but drew into a land clump and fizzled.
Mindslaver fired.
This is one of those times where discussion helps. If this was a real tournament, the Enchantress player is going to look bored and provide no help at all, and time could be a factor. In this sort of tournament, where the right play is more important, I noted down the position, then we took the dogs for a walk to talk and thinking this over.
Here’s the position, as best I can remember it:
Enchantress:
Hand: Yavimaya Coast, two Forest, Island, Wild Growth
In play: Exploration, three Forests, two Islands, Wall of Blossoms, Serra’s Sanctum with Wild Growth and Fertile Ground, Words of Wind, Argothian Enchantress, Trade Routes.
It’s a Magic the Puzzling in reverse – how do you make Enchantress lose, here?
We discussed the odds of being able to have Enchantress draw its deck here. If it gets a god draw here – for example, it rips Argothian Enchantress, then two Enchantress’s Presence off the draws from Wild Growth, and a Frantic Search of two, then it could very well draw enough cards to deck itself. The odds are against it, however. The most probable outcome would be that Enchantress would draw a bunch of cards, develop its position, then fizzle. Not a good result for U/W Tron.
Here’s the best we could come up with:
Draw for the turn – the card drawn was Yavimaya Coast. Play Wild Growth, targeting Serra’s Sanctum. When Argothian Enchantress triggers, replace the draw with picking her up. (U/W Tron picked up the Court Hussar.) Tap Serra’s Sanctum for a bunch of mana, and tap all the rest of the lands. Discard one land to Trade Routes; in response to the draw, discard another land. Replace both draws and pick up Trade Routes. (U/W Tron picked up a land.) In response, discard another land to Trade Routes, and replace that to pick up Words of Wind. (U/W Tron picked u the Signet.)
Then Enchantress used the rest of its mana to bounce all its lands to hand. Then it discarded leaving it with the following.
In play: Wall of Blossoms, Exploration.
In hand: 5 Forest, 2 Yavimaya Coast
The biggest decision was whether to bounce the Trade Routes. On the one hand, it was card drawing – and a way for the Enchantress deck to recover. On the other hand, it was that or the Exploration – and Exploration would allow the Enchantress deck to recover too quickly. The biggest consideration was that Mindslaver could screw over Enchantress in basically three ways: if could deck it, it could tap it out, or it could bounce all its lands with Trade Routes. Trade Routes is very much a two-edged sword in this matchup.
We tried to take notes, so we could reconstruct and try it the other way.
U/W Tron was in this position:
In play: two Hallowed Fountain, Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Tower, Plains,
In hand: Signet, Court Hussar, Thirst for Knowledge, Decree of Justice, Plains, Hallowed Fountain.
Tron played a lands, cast Thirst for Knowledge (drawing Solemn Simulacrum and nothing relevant) then dropped Court Hussar, revealing pointless cards and another Thirst.
Enchantress ripped Argothian Enchantress, and played Forest, Coast off Exploration, Enchantress. Next turn, it drew Exploration, then Enchantress Presence off the Enchantress draw. U/W Tron Thirsted in response, then Cycled Decree for three tokens, leaving just the enough mana to Condescend, but ended up Remanding. (Argothian Enchantress triggers off an enchantment being cast, not resolving, so Enchantress still drew a card.)
To make a long story short, U/W Tron could not develop enough pressure fast enough. Eventually, Enchantress found a Words of Wind, and ended up bouncing U/W Tron’s fifteen odd permanents with a Wall of Blossoms and a lot of land – despite the fact that Tron drew back-to-back Yoseis at one point. (Note on that: Tron dropped Yosei number one. The next turn Enchantress started bouncing permanents. Tron would have lost all its permanents in two turns.)
In the replay, leaving the Trade Routes was marginally worse, but only slightly. With Trade Routes in play, another Mindslaver or Academy Ruins would have won the game. Without it, those were both close to dead draws.
So, in U/W Tron’s best game, it resolved a Mindslaver and wiped out Enchantresses lands, and it locked Enchantress with Yosei for two turns, while beating down – and it still lost.
U/W Tron is so slow!
Sideboarding was easy from the Enchantress side. Bind comes in, and Yavimaya Enchantress goes out. The beatdown Enchantress is pretty much irrelevant – either Enchantress bounces all the permanents (in which case it wins in any case), or it doesn’t, in which case Yavimaya Enchantress just gets chumped or dies to Wrath. It would be different if these were timed matches…
Sideboarding for U/W Tron is not so straightforward. The Disenchants come in. Tron is the beatdown deck in this matchup, so it does not really want to take out threats, but the Solemn Simulacrums just run into Walls of Blossoms, so they probably come out. The Orim’s Chants might be nice, but I don’t know what to take out. At first glance, Faith’s Fetters look marginal, but when it comes to Words of Wind and Trade Routes, they are four-mana Disenchants. Wrath is almost useless – but it is the only answer to a resolved Argothian Enchantress.
Not that it matters. The first tournament game – whether played with Exploration, Trade Routes or neither left in play – was the only close game. In all, we played 6 tournament games, and the final score was 0-6 for Tron.
Just for kicks, I ran U/W Tron against a beatdown Enchantress deck. A bad beatdown deck: Trained Seals, from a very old Dojo article of mine. Wrath is very relevant to that matchup, but it still wasn’t always enough.
It’s enough for U/W Tron, however. Enchantress advances.
Trix versus Twiddle Desire
First of all, I copied the wrong Trix list last week. I was so concerned with finding a version that ran Firestorm (which trumped my G/B Survival deck’s answers: Spike Feeder and Elvish Lyrist) that I didn’t even realize that I had a list without Dark Ritual! My very bad.
Here’s a better Trix list:
Trix
William Jensen
GP: Philadelphia, Feb. 2000
4 Badlands
4 Peat Bog
4 Underground River
4 Underground Sea
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Volcanic Island
4 Necropotence
4 Illusions of Grandeur
4 Donate
4 Force of Will
2 Hoodwink
4 Demonic Consultation
2 Vampiric Tutor
2 Firestorm
4 Duress
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
Sideboard:
3 Contagion
4 Hydroblast
4 Pyroblast
4 Phyrexian Negator
This is the match-up that is giving me all kinds of trouble. The decisions are so strange. For example, assume you are playing the Twiddle / Desire deck. Your opponent has Illusions in play, plenty of mana available, but he has only UBR up now. He just used Necropotence to set aside 20 cards, and is at 14 life. You have Mystical Tutor, Tendrils of Agony, Tinker, Chrome Mox, Twiddle, and City of Traitors in hand, and Ancient Tomb, Saprazzan Skerry (1onecounter) and Seat of the Synod (tapped) in play. What do you do? Mystical at end of turn, which kills the Skerry a turn sooner? Mystical during upkeep, in which case you up the storm count, but reduces your available mana?
Since your opponent just chose the best seven cards out of, let’s say, 23, he has a good hand. He should have at least one Force of Will and a spare Blue card, and may have either REB or a Demonic Consultation to fetch REB. He almost certainly has Donate, and maybe Hoodwink. And two other cards.
You could Mystical for a second Tinker, cast the Chrome Mox empty, Tinker for Gilded Lotus, and Tinker a second time if the first Tinker is Forced. If either resolves, you could play Tendrils. It might not be enough to kill him, but you would gain some life, so he would have to combo again to kill you. The down side is that, if he counters both Tinkers, you have burned Skerry and will have problems paying upkeep.
You could Mystical for Diminishing Returns. He has constructed a perfect hand, and has to pay upkeep. Necro stops his draws, so if he did not draw Donate, he would have to Necro for more cards in an attempt to find one – and even if he does, he will have to pay upkeep on one more turn, because Necro give you the cards end of turn.
Alternatively, you could Mystical on upkeep for a second Tendrils, play Chrome Mox imprinting Tendrils, then Twiddle the Mox. If Twiddle resolves, you have double Black for Tendrils in your pool. If not, your opponent has one less Hoodwink or Pyroblast. Next, Tinker away the Seat of the Synod for a Gilded Lotus. If it resolves, fine. If not, the Tinker and the counter that stopped it just upped the storm count. Then play the Tendrils. The storm count isn’t high enough to kill him, but the life gain you pick up is important.
A final option is to Twiddle Seat of the Synod, then cast Mystical for Mind’s Desire during upkeep. During main phase, play City of Traitors and the Chrome Mox empty (or imprinting Tinker if the opponent countered the Twiddle for some reason), then cast Mind’s Desire and pray.
I’m not sure which is the correct play. I’m not even sure if Trix should counter the Mystical Tutor. Before storm, the answer was always not to counter the tutor, but to counter what it gets. Now, I think it depends.
The games are a blast to play – they just take way longer than expected.
I won’t call this one, yet.
CMU Gun versus Stasis
Another one that isn’t complete, yet. The decklist is missing three cards. At least one of those must be a Mountain, otherwise Land Tax cannot get red mana, and that’s a problem.
This may be another matchup where familiarity helps. In the forums, UniversalSnip2 said “I really have no idea how stasis is supposed to beat w/r tax. Having played it in the past, it seems to have every advantage against the Extended version of owling mine. I will play the matchup a little and post summaries.”
and: “Summary: 3-1 tax. To make this matchup favorable, Tax must manage the number of mana sources, especially red sources, left in its library and hand. Stasis’ big threat is locking out rw’s ability to play burn spells more than once every six turns.”
I, on the other hand, am quite familiar with Stasis. When piloting Stasis, I have only lost once to CMU Gun – and that was a game where Stasis mulliganed, then was mana screwed for several turns. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a better Stasis player, or a worse Tax/Rack player.
Stasis wins on the back of Powder Keg. Tapping out for Keg early is rarely the wrong play. Stasis can slow the game down. Beyond that, it is all about managing your life total. You just want to keep your life total above four, if possible – four because that allows you to eat one Lightning Bolt and still Force something.
I think Stasis has a distinct edge, but I want to play this more and make sure everyone is familiar with the matchup before I start counting tournament games.
GobVantage versus High Tide
High Tide – the version with Time Spiral – was played in the season before I started playing competitively. By the time I was playing in PTQs and so forth, Time Spiral was banned and High Tide had rotated. I have never played *this* version of Time Spiral before. The closest I have ever played was a Bubbling Muck deck years past – and that was hardly broken.
GobVantange was played the season that I stopped playtesting extensively and started judging at PTQs. I never played GobVantage in any serious manner. I’m pretty certain I have never played the deck at all.
I suck with both.
I spent nearly all my free time last week trying to play out these matchups, and I don’t have results. I even skipped the online release events to play out these matches, and I can’t provide results. I’m not real pleased with that, and I’m sure Craig isn’t either.
For what it’s worth, High Tide is winning nearly all the pre-sideboarded games, but remember, I suck with both.
I suck less than I did last week, though.
More updates next time!
PRJ