Preparing for any Magic event can be a difficult thing. In today’s current Extended, I feel like it is a particularly frustrating exercise. Extended is such a wide open format that has literally more than ten decks are worth paying attention to, and yet there is nothing that you can make that will beat them all. Even worse, though, you can make a deck that has a shot to go all the way, and decide to just toss it all away, to punt it, and make a gift of yourself to your opponent.
This is the story of how I came to the PTQ with the right deck, and lost in the finals.
I had come into the week of the event with a SRB (Stupid Red Burn) list in mind, but the echoes of the weekend before, of LA, were still important to consider. I sat down, gunning some games against Brian Kowal, before heading home to think over the 8-0 thrashing he had just given me with LSV’s build of Storm. My burn list had been honed to give Wizzies (as I like to call the Blue/sometimes Blue-Black Faeries list that is driven by Riptide Labs and typically no main deck Bitterblossom) a hard time, and it did just that: I had gotten it to soundly beat Wizzies, but it was at a cost. That once-fantastic Zoo matchup had dwindled to a near coin-flip.
I had, in general, been experimenting with other Red lists as well. My deck from last week seemed promising, but I didn’t have much in the way of testing with it, yet. I had been working on All-In-Red, with some ideas inspired by a conversation with Brian Kowal, some thoughts of Bill Stark, and my own takes on how the deck should work. Some online testing with the other Sullivan who likes Red was also productive: Patrick Sullivan is always one of those voices I listen to for Mono-Red. I’ve already written about how I felt like Patrick was the only other person (besides me) to have built not only a rational Red deck for Hollywood, not to mention a good Red deck, and Patrick hasn’t been right at that cusp only once, so he is always a good person to listen to. A conversation with him online ended up being very, very productive. I actually didn’t take much in the way of his direct advice on the deck I was working on, but his thoughts on the format did help crystallize the shape I wanted to go with the deck I made.
So, in the end, I gathered the cards I needed for the Red deck from last week and sat down for some more playtest sessions, trying to figure out what my plans were. The most critical two were a huge set of games against John Treviranus’s (the deckbuilder that was hugely influential on Brian Kowal’s build of Boat Brew) current Zoo list — a small tweak and update from a stock list — and a fantastic session with Gaudenis Vidigiris, armed with the Mark Heberholz list of Wizzies. Between the two of them, I came to the conclusion that my old list had to change, and at the same time, that it could be improved into something really powerful.
Here is that old list:
Creatures (20)
Lands (7)
Spells (33)
Sideboard
There is a lot I really, really liked about this list. It has a huge reach, and it can just make an opponent lose without casting more than three spells, sometimes. Also, it has that RDW element of “gotcha!” that can happen simply because you stumbled, and the deck was there with a timely mana-disruption element that just makes their game go away.
But my testing held up four major problems:
1) Slith Firewalker was deeply disappointing.
This guy only ever mattered if he was hastily coming in for that last bit of damage, or he was dropped on turn 1, and then only if you spent your time clearing the way for him. YUCK! Plus, he was a Two, which means that the ol’ Spell Snare could be right there to make like hellacious.
2) Vexing Shusher was even more disappointing.
Oh, he did the job that he was supposed to do. He couldn’t be countered by Wizzies, and he got your spells to resolve. But often he just sat there, staring down a Trinket Mage or a Venser or a Shackles, and felt stupid. Versus aggressive decks, he was completely horrible; trading with a Frogmite was a good day for him.
3) Flame Javelin seemed underwhelming.
Don’t get me wrong, there are things I love about Javelin. Four damage is a lot of damage, especially when it can simply be tossed at a creature with no muss, no fuss. It’s great to imagine scenarios where Firecat x2 and Javelin x1 can just deal the necessary damage to kill someone off. But, while this does happen, the damn spell costs three mana. That’s a lot.
4) Umezawa’s Jitte was cumbersome.
Jitte was one of those cards that I often hated to see. When my opponent drew theirs, I wanted mine. I never wanted to even see a second one, but a test session against Gaudenis later, I knew that I had to have at least some way to handle it, just so I wouldn’t bend over to a single Jitte from an opponent.
One of the ways I’ve always gone about building decks is the tried and true Spoiler Method. Go through every single one, of those legal cards and write them down in brainstorming. “There are no bad ideas in brainstorming, Lemon,” as Jack Donaghy says. It’s a time consuming process, but its one that nearly always bears fruit.
The other thing that I do is I revisit the past. What are the other decks that have been out there have the ability to offer any advice to your current deck? I know that the list I was putting together was largely marrying three old lists of mine, “Oops!” Red and my Ponza list that I won the Wisconsin States with in 2002. These are decks that are five and seven years old, respectively, but they definitely informed my thoughts about how the deck could work. The third list would have to be Chevy Red, which showed me the power of an accelerated Magus of the Moon.
Here is Oops! Red:
Oops! Red
Adrian Sullivan/Adam Kugler/Ben Dempsey
4 Raging Goblin
4 Goblin Sledder
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Blistering Firecat
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Shrapnel Blast
2 Volcanic Hammer
2 Hammer of Bogardan
2 Detonate
3 Goblin Burrows
4 Great Furnace
4 Chrome Mox
11 Mountains
Sideboard:
3 Dwarven Blastminer
2 Flashfires
4 Avarax
2 Stalking Stones
2 Detonate
2 Shatter
The deck’s big mistake at the time was only running 2 Flashfires, and it easily cost me two matches that year. What it did have, though, was this crazily powerful ability to just kill someone with Blistering Firecats and Shrapnel Blast. It also held the combo of Blastminer (in the board) and Firecat that I had employed in the Ponza list from the year before. This combo was ridiculously good, tricking people into killing the wrong guy, and providing excellent resistance to anti-Red measures. In the Ponza list, this was backed up by even more LD, and the result was a deck that could often just cripple someone.
I came to think about those old Shusher and how much more effective a Blastminer would have been in the same situation. Testing quickly confirmed this. Where the Shusher always resolved, the Blastminer often resolved, sometimes as early as turn 1. From there, Wizzies would sometimes just crumble. Yes, they could deal with him sometimes, but other times he would just nibble away turn after turn while they dug for answers. Even if they did eventually get him, they were often so far off-balance it was already a done game.
I still needed a replacement for Slith. Here, my hunting through the spoiler lists came into high profile. As soon as I saw Figure of Destiny, a little light bulb went off in my head. I ended up mentioning this idea in the forums of last week’s article, and the more I reflected on it, the crazier it seemed. Crazy like a fox, anyway. It would be easy to go through the following progression:
Turn 1: Figure of Destiny, Chrome Mox, make Figure a 2/2
Turn 2: lay the third mana, make Figure a 4/4, attack for 4 (Wow!)
Turn 3: lay the fourth mana, Blistering Firecat, attack for 11 (!!!)
This actually happens in about 10% of games.
Umezawa’s Jitte was the next monster to tackle. It had come to the point where I either wanted three Jitte, or zero. There is a big difference in those numbers. In some matchups, you simply do not want to ever draw a Jitte. In others, it’s not that great, unless you are getting lucky, or you are using it to kill their Jitte. But worst of all was Jitte versus Storm of any variety. And Storm was a very likely opponent to expect to see the week after LA.
I borrowed from World Champion Antti Malin’s burn list, and decided to main deck some Smash to Smithereens. Smash was not great against Storm, but it was far better than Jitte. Smash was also very powerful against Affinity, obviously, and far better than Jitte there, completely. Even against Jitte opposing Jittes, Smash was really good, trashing their four mana play for two mana, and sometimes causes real havoc if you Smashed the Jitte at in inopportune time. The Smash to Smithereens gave my Chrome Moxes more food, and also took care of the clear problem that an unanswered Vedalken Shackles could sometimes be. With my “three” Jittes now in place (as one Jitte, two Smash to Smithereens), I was ready to move on to my last problem.
Flame Javelin’s replacement quickly became Magma Jet. Magma Jet not only let me pass over the more matchup dependent cards in my deck, but also smooth out anything that was going wrong. Magma Jet in Burn is like your 5th through 8th Shrapnel Blast, but in this deck, it was more like a burn version of Orcish Librarian, a card that at least Patrick Chapin and I have a lot of love for. You just want the “Librarian” to make sure your draw turns out a little bit smoother. A real Librarian would tend to give you the nuts, but we’ll “make do” with a Shock that does the job… Magma Jet seems like a definite four-of, and I take Patrick Sullivan advice about only three Shrapnel Blast to heart, cutting down by one to make room for another Jet.
I was pretty excited about the list, but also a little bit scared. I know the feeling of going into a tournament and knowing you had the best deck in the room. Just knowing it. For Time Spiral Block, I went into it knowing I had the best deck. It’s been a feeling I’ve had many, many times, and it has always been born out. I felt really good about the changes to my deck, but still was deeply nervous about my deck choice. I couldn’t even sleep, really.
So, I felt a little bit vindicated and a little bit scared when John Treviranus IM’ed me late the night before the event with the results of an E-League event. It had had something like 100 people, and my old list had Top 4’ed. Suddenly, I’m wondering if I should just undo all of the changes I’d thought of.
In the end, I stick to my guns, and just play what I think is right. I feel a little bit better, but I’m still scared about some things. Maybe I’ll miss the damage that +1 Shrapnel Blast, +3 Flame Javelin provided. Ack! If only I hadn’t spent so much time testing SRB (Stupid Red Burn), I’d have more answers!
Here is what I ended up sleeving up. If this format were to be played again tomorrow, it is also what I’d sleeve up again:
Creatures (19)
Lands (19)
Spells (22)
- 1 Umezawa's Jitte
- 4 Incinerate
- 4 Magma Jet
- 3 Shrapnel Blast
- 4 Molten Rain
- 4 Chrome Mox
- 2 Smash to Smithereens
Sideboard
About the only wiggle room in the 75 here is between Dead/Gone and Boil — if there isn’t much in the way of Islands near you, drop a Boil for a Dead/Gone. Personally, I think there would really have to be very few Island-players in the room to make this change. I happily boarded in 3 Boil versus my finals opponent, Owen Turtenwald, even though he only had seven total “Island” — it just closes down one of their outs.
On a semantic aside, while the initial build of this list was closer to a RDW/Sligh style deck, it has (I think) clearly moved into a more Ponza/RDW space. RDW and Ponza have always had a close relation, I think. The original RDW with Ports and Wastelands still strikes me as the “Ponza-equivalent” of the time…
Here’s how the tournament played out.
160 players showed up to Madison, Wisconsin. The event was incredibly well-run by Legions Events (of Game in the Gulf fame), and wonderfully head-judged by Jason Lemahieu. The field looked like a solid mix of all of the major decks, with the majority of Madison players seemingly leaning towards Storm or Black/Green Loam.
Round 1 — Andy — Prosak Zoo
Andy and I have a remarkably close game 1, with him tossing down several Keldon Marauders, and me managing to hit him with a Blistering Firecat. A critical Lightning Helix turns the race around, and he hits me to zero with only four life remaining on his side.
I board out Shrapnel Blast for Dead/Gone and Smash to Smithereens for Jitte. He basically starts game 2 at 14 life, and two Molten Rain tear him up, with a Magus of the Moon keeping him from ever being able to cast his Lightning Helix in hand. The third game is much the same, with a Molten Rain and Magus just locking him out. He manages to hit me with a Kird Ape, and a Marauders, but then falls on defense against Figure of Destiny all pumped up.
1-0, 2-1
Round 2 — Mike — Elves!
The first game is one of those games that just sticks deeply in my head. I drop a turn 1 2/2 Figure of Destiny, and pump it up to a 4/4 on the next turn. I pause for a turn to Magma Jet a Llanowar Elf so that the game doesn’t just end, and almost put a Molten Rain and Great Furnace on the bottom of my library, until I contemplate my hand, a Chrome Mox and a Blistering Firecat. At this point, he’s at 11 (two hits and a ping from a land), and has nothing going, and a Firecat might get me a long way to killing him before he goes off, but if he drops a Wirewood Symbiote (and an Elf), that plan won’t work. Better, I feel, to Molten Rain him on the next turn, just to keep him off of anything, and let him block/bounce, and then follow up with the killer play. He does drop Symbiote and Elvish Visionary, taking another pain from a Horizon Canopy. I Molten Rain his Canopy, drop him to eight, and see what he can do with Symbiote and two land. He redrops the Visionary, drops a land and a Llanowar Elf, and says go.
I draw the Great Furnace, imprint the Blistering Firecat onto the Mox, and swing in the air for 8 with Figure. Go, go Magma Jet!
I bring in Trinispheres, Jittes, and Dead/Gone for Shrapnel Blast, Smash to Smithereens, and some of my Incinerates. I spend the first two turns killing Elves, Molten Rain a Forest, and then drop Trinisphere. He doesn’t have three mana, yet, just Birchlore Rangers and two land. I just mop him up after that…
2-0, 4-1
Round 3 — Sean-Michael Ryder — Aggro-Loam
Sean is one of those really good guys that often does well at events, and has managed a Pro Tour now and again. He’s playing Aggro-Loam.
I drop a turn 2 Magus of the Moon, and it, along with help from Molten Rain, just locks him out. I board out Smash to Smithereens and Shrapnel Blast for Dead/Gone and Jitte.
Game 2 he drops down some Goyfs before I can get anything going, and then starts to hit me around with Finks. It isn’t pretty.
I realize that my Jets kill nearly nothing, and bring back in the Shrapnel Blasts, tossing out the Jets instead. It doesn’t really matter, though, as a Magus of the Moon locks him out of his whole hand. He tries to get something going with Loam and a single cycle land, but he can only cast so much. A second Magus protects the first from Putrefy making his mana work.
3-0, 6-2
Round 4 — Wizzies
I neglected to write down my opponent’s name. He is playing the Ancestral Vision/Glen Elendra heavy version of Wizzies. A Vendilion Clique and Spellstutter (killing a Blastminer) start working on me, but I get down a Magus of the Moon, and Jet and Fanatic keep him from having creatures. Without much mana to work with, I have my way with him.
I board in Boil and Shattering Spree for Shrapnel Blast and Incinerates. A first turn Figure of Destiny becomes 4/4 really quick, and gets helped by a Blistering Firecat on turn 3. He has all the mana he wants on turn 4, but no answer to the Figure. After chumping for a turn, he scoops it up.
4-0, 8-2
Round 5 — Jordan — Blue Zoo
Jordan is a seemingly inexperienced player, but one of the very few undefeated players left in the tournament at this point. He mentions that he has lost every game 1, and I figure he must have a sideboard surprise for me.
I drop a 2/2 Figure on turn 1, and he cracks a Heath and then plays some lands that indicate he is not Prosak’s list. I hold back on attacking with my Figure against 2 Nacatl, but first Molten Rain a land (knocking him to 15), then Blistering Firecat him (knocking him to 8), then Molten Rain him again (to 6). A Shrapnel Blast and Mogg Fanatic finish him off.
I board in Jitte and Dead/Gone for Shrapnel Blast and a pair of Magma Jet. Things feel pretty good for me, with my Mogg Fanatics and Blastminer on the table, with a Jitte in play, when he drops Lightning Angel, and swings to knock me to 7, with a Goyf and Nacatl on the table. At 16 life, I talk him into blocking my now attacking Blastminer with his Lightning Angel. He realizes that if he doesn’t block, and my hand contains two Shrapnel Blasts, he would die. To my mind, the chances that I have those two Shrapnel Blasts are pretty low, but he seems pretty concerned that I’ll just get him. As a result, I pump up my Blastminer, transfer the Jitte back to Fanatic, and try to hold him off. His swing in drops me to one, and he drops more men, including a Sculler. I do what I can to hold him off, clearing the table of every man (including my own) to get there, but he’s at 12 to my one life. He draws a Tribal Flames before I draw a creature to attack with.
I bring back in the Shrapnel Blasts to deal with Angel, and drop out the rest of the Jets and an Incinerate. In the last game, I mulligan twice and am pretty bummed about it. My opener, though, is Mox/Blastminer. I drop it on turn 1. He casts a Nacatl. I drop a land and nuke a land. He drops another, and drops another Nacatl. I sit back and nuke a land. He swings in again, and searches out a forest, swinging in to knock me to 15. I drop a Jitte, equip it, and wipe his board. He drops a plains and a Jitte to kill mine, and I make short work of him from there.
5-0, 10-3
Round 6 — John Treviranus — Tron
John and I are pretty glum to be playing each other, but at this point, there are only four 5-0 players, so are odds of hitting each other were pretty good.
I’m basically pre-boarded against him, and a combination of my mana attack make this matchup largely hopeless for him. We wrap up quick, and check out the top of the field.
6-0, 12-3
I double-draw into the Top 8, making me the number two seed at the end.
1st — Aggro Loam (Sean-Michael Rider from Round 3)
2nd — Ponza (Me)
3rd — Affinity (Lucas Duchow)
4th — Tezzerator (Brad Nelson)
5th — Wizzies (Owen Turtenwald)
6th — Wizzies (Andy Hanson)
7th — Tron (John Treviranus from Round 6)
8th — Wizzies (Michael Bernat)
It’s a very strong Top 8, with at least five players with Pro Tour experience in it. It might be more, but I don’t know how Nelson and Hanson have done in the past.
Quarterfinals — John Treviranus — Tron
This is just a repeat of the same. My deck is essentially preboarded against him, and it finishes incredibly quickly.
7-0-2, 14-3
Semifinals — Any Hanson — Wizzies
Andy is from Cedar Rapids, and so knows and plays with the top Iowa crew. His Wizard deck is pretty standard, and only a few cards different from eventual champion Owen Turtenwald list.
Game 1, I drop a turn 1 Blastminer, and it goes to work on him. He eventually blows it up, but it is too late, now. A Magus and Blistering Firecat make short work of him.
I board in Boil and Shattering Spree (I saw Chrome Mox and Thirst for Knowledge) for Shrapnel Blasts and Incinerates. I come out a little slower, but a Magus hits play, with a Shattering Spree hitting Chrome Mox and Seat. Crippled, I finish him off with random creatures.
8-0-2, 16-3
Finals — Owen Turtenwald — Wizzies
Owen, at this point in his game, is probably the best player in the tournament. I feel deeply confident, because this matchup is generally a cake-walk, but he’s a very good player and I know that he’ll likely play very well, and I know I can already feel my mental game slipping from a long day. He makes some quip about only one of us deserving to go to the Pro Tour, and unfortunately, I prove him right. Here is his list:
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
4 Mana Leak
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Vendilion Clique
3 Sower of Temptation
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Cryptic Command
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Secluded Glen
4 River of Tears
3 Riptide Laboratory
3 Polluted Delta
4 Mutavault
1 Watery Grave
6 Island
Sideboard:
4 Thoughtseize
3 Damnation
3 Negate
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
1 Threads of Disloyalty
An early Vendilion Clique is the key moment, here. He casts it, and I just flop my hand on the table like an amateur. He hadn’t mentioned targeting, he hadn’t baited me, everything he did was clean. I just handed him some information, and he said, “Um, I haven’t targeted anyone yet.”
An aside on mistakes: these things happen. One of my big weaknesses as a player has always been sloppy play, particularly when I’m getting mentally or physically tired. Gaffes of all kinds happen. Sometimes, it’s something like I did at the last Madison PTQ, where I cycled a Resounding Silence in my Esper deck without a Green mana to speak of, and waited several minutes when a spectator called for a judge, wondering what was going on until it was pointed out to us that I couldn’t cycle it. Usually, though, it is more akin to things that happened in PT: Hollywood where I just toss away a match with a mis-tap, or GP Minneapolis, where I had out three untapped mana and discard Harrow at the end of turn when my opponent Recoils my Forest. It’s all donkery. Usually it ends poorly. This time was no exception.
Now knowing that I don’t have a land to play, Owen targets himself with the Clique, getting rid of a Jitte, leaving him with only one potential draw in his deck that could rationally be hit by my Smash to Smithereens in hand. I knock him down to 1, but he takes the game.
There’s a saying I’ve always liked. I think it comes from Brian Kowal:
“If you’re playing Red, and your opponent wins the game at one life, you probably did something wrong.”
This can be true of any deck, but for Red, it is especially true. It might not have simply been the egregious play error with the Clique. Maybe I could have tried a more aggressive mulligan. Maybe I could have paced my spells into his counters more effectively. Maybe I could have given a false tell that would have convinced him to sack his sack land earlier (it remained uncracked all game). Something. Probably there was something I could have done better, even if I hadn’t done the Clique mistake. With the way that game played out, I would have had one turn to try to force through the damage for the kill, and it would have worked.
I bring in the Boils, and the Jittes, and then decide to take out a Jitte for a single Shattering Spree. In game 2, then, I keep another hand with Fanatics and Figure of Destiny, some mana, and Magus. I draw into Blastminer as well, but he Snares it. On turn 4, I draw a Chrome Mox, and this begins the end for me. I have a Boil, and resolve it, but then for the next many turns, I draw only two spells (not counting two more Chrome Mox) while his Ancestral Visions counts down, a single Shattering Spree and a Blistering Firecat. I have literally nothing going when he counters the Cat, and he survives the match at a healthy 10 life.
Here, I probably should have mulliganed for a more aggressive hand. Even if I hadn’t, I probably shouldn’t have brought in that Spree — his deck was way to Island-light to comfortably support Shackles, and I wasn’t likely to catch him with his pants down on Explosives. I just, I think, over thought the situation, and wanting to maintain Jitte advantage without worry of Spell Snare getting me. Even though the Spree, if it were a Jitte instead, might not have resolved, it would have meant that my Blinkmoth Nexus would have gone to town on him if it did.
Properly played, though, it was the game 1 that really did it. If I had won that, and he had won the second, the third game, with me on the play, would have looked fantastic. I only am getting what I deserve, though. He clearly outplayed me. I clearly messed up.
The best matchup in the world doesn’t matter if you aren’t playing right.
Denouement
I’m incredibly happy with the deck, at the very least. I think it is a contender to stay. Opposing Zoo-style decks can be rough, depending on the particular configuration, but overall, I feel like this deck is incredibly well-positioned for the current metagame.
I’d like to give a big congratulations to Owen for his well-deserved victory, and to Steve Port for supplying the decklists for the article. (P.S., the rest of the top 4 is below…)
See you next week.
…
Andy Hanson, 3rd
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak
3 Stifle
2 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Chrome Mox
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Steam Vaults
1 Breeding Pool
2 Seat of the Synod
4 Mutavault
3 Riptide Laboratory
1 Mimamo, School by Water’s Edge
5 Island
Sideboard:
3 Sower of Temptation
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Negate
1 Stifle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
Michael Bernat, 4th
3 Cryptic Command
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Spell Snare
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Mana Leak
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Stifle
2 Riptide Laboratory
4 Secluded Glen
4 River of Tears
4 Mutavualt
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
8 Island
Sideboard:
4 Damnation
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Negate
4 Bitterblossom
3 Thoughtseize
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