Although it would mean three consecutive weekends of travel (two involving work), I trekked to RIW Hobbies in Livonia Michigan for an irresistible Eternal double-header, playing Legacy and Vintage tournaments on consecutive days. I made it to the tournament site just after midnight on Friday night. Patrick Chapin, Manuel Bucher, Brian DeMars, Paul Mastriano, Phil Cape, and three other characters just wrapped up a round of “Werewolf.” Although I hadn’t played Mafia since I was a camp counselor many years ago, I somehow got roped into playing the next round. Even worse, I was randomly assigned to be a Werewolf.
Well, I thought, the only way I was going to survive is if I acted exactly as I would if I were a Villager. I managed to convince virtually everyone that I was a villager, and even went so far as to almost vote to kill the other Werewolf, Phil Cape when we were down to five players. I only saved him because I sensed at the last minute that some of the remaining villagers alive were also going to vote to keep him alive. If I had killed him, I had a solid plan to win. Mark Biller had led the hunt, and had brought quite a bit of suspicion on himself. I was going to knock out the safest villager in the night and then lead the charge to kill Biller, which I think would have easily succeeded. In any case, the rest of the Villagers did the hard work, killing each other for us. The Villagers voted off the wrong person, and Phil and I win. I moderated the next two games, and, then, after 3am, Manuel, Patrick, and myself headed to Patrick’s apartment.
When I told Patrick I was intending to run Jotun Grunts and Tormod’s Crypt to combat Dredge, Manuel started laying it on me, telling me that those cards do nothing. Fine, Patrick and Manuel convinced me to run 4 Leyline of the Void and 2 Yixlid Jailers. Patrick quickly proxied up a Dredge deck with a sharpie and a stack of commons. We played six post-board games (assuming that I lose each pre-board game), alternating who was playing first. I won all six games. In only one of those games did I have a turn 0 Leyline, and it was promptly Chained. I won by Forcing, Thoughtseizing, or Dazing turn 1 Lion’s Eye Diamonds, Breakthrough, and the like, and then using my insane Brainstorm/Ponder engine to find a Jailer (or Leyline) and play it. By the time these games wrapped up and I got a shower, it was almost 6am. Before I rested, I walked to the window to enjoy the gorgeous view of the Detroit skyline from Patrick’s pad. Although Columbus is a much larger city now, Detroit has an incredible skyline.
In Vintage, I would never run less than 8 anti-Dredge cards in my sideboard. I do not underestimate that deck in any format.
I somehow managed to awake before the alarm (set at 10:45), after about 4 hours of sleep. I rose in the silence of his tower apartment, gathered my things, and set out for my car, pushing myself in the cold like a pre-historical man in the Ice Age. I couldn’t remember where we parked my car in the dark, especially since Patrick’s normal lot was full. He told me to take a left out of his apartment building and then turn right. It looked like just a dead-end alley. After a moment of chilly contemplation, I followed his instructions, and saw my car in the distance. After a 25 minute drive, I arrived at RIW.
30 players also made the trip, which meant we had a five swiss round tournament.
Here is what I sleeved up.
Creatures (14)
Lands (17)
Spells (29)
I played the same deck as I played at the Meandeck Open at the end of December. If you’ll recall, I played Chapin’s 2007 World’s deck card for card and made a top 4 split. Let me walk you through the changes I made.
After the Meandeck Open, my teammate Jerry Yang suggested 2 Trygon Predator. It sounded like a great idea. It’s Blue, so it pitches to Force. It’s at three mana, which can make a difference with Counterbalance. It flies, so it beats ground stalls. It trumps all of the cards that beat this deck: Moat, Blood Moon, Counterbalance mirror, and so on. It’s also hell for the Dreadtill decks, and generally well positioned in the metagame. I was sold on the idea from the outset. However, a steady stream of criticism came in from teammates. Patrick told me it wouldn’t work like I wanted. Others tried it and found it lacking. I was ready to give up, but decided at the last minute to stick with my initial analysis and see how it actually performed in a tournament.
First of all, although Serum Visions tested well, it was fairly random. It’s certainly not as powerful as Brainstorm or Ponder. So I cut it. Stifle was often useful, countering Explosives or hitting a Fetchland, but it’s ultimately random as well. Its function, it seems, is to exist to suggest that you may have more than one, to create fear that I might have Stifle. I can do that without even needing a Stifle.
When people first approach Legacy, Stifle is a card that may stand out as very powerful given the ubiquity of fetchlands. I think Stifle is overrated. It’s a good card, no doubt about it. But people, I think, overvalue it, and I think they overvalue it for one reason. At least 40-50% of the value of Stifle comes from hitting someone’s fetchland. While that may sound good, the fact of the matter is that the better your opponent is, the less devastating or likely that play is going to be. A good player will always be making cost benefit decisions in every play, including whether and when to break a fetchland. Less experience or skillful players will often blindly, or at least unthoughtfully, break fetchlands and pay the price for it. If you suspect your opponent has Stifle, you can definitely minimize the chances that it will harm you. Let’s break it down. First of all, if you are on the draw, Stifle is already worse, since the chances of you getting a tempo bump drop substantially. So it’s already luck dependent to some extent. Second, even if you know your opponent has Stifle, you can just refuse to break a fetchland on turn 1. And if your opponent wants to keep Stifle up, they will have to keep an Island untapped. By the time it comes to their second turn, if they are still doing that, you have actually, to some extent, created tempo parity, since they didn’t play a spell on turn 1 and only used half of their mana, at most, on turn 2. Finally, it’s random and non-strategic. While you can definitely blow someone out in a game by Stifling a fetchland, it’s just as likely that they’ll have another land and recover. It can be a powerful tactic, but it doesn’t really count as a strategic card unless you are using it to counter Dreadnaught triggers. For all of these reasons, and more, Stifle is a good card in Legacy, but it is definitely overrated. I thought little about cutting the maindeck Stifle.
However, I also wanted both the fourth Counterbalance, after being prodded by other Counterbalance-Goyf players on the Source, and a fourth Daze, since that card was so amazing for me at Grand Prix: Columbus and the Meandeck Open, the last two Legacy tournaments in which I competed. I decided to at least add the fourth Daze, and cut Engineered Explosives, which I felt was less necessary with two Trygon Predators.
I also reconfigured my sideboard a bit. At first I decided I was going to run Ethersworn Canonists over Stifles, but after reading something Josh Silvestri said on these forums, I decided not to even worry about Legacy Storm decks. I focused on beating Dredge decks and Loam decks instead, and kept the rest of the sideboard the same.
Round 1: Timmy with Five-Color Zoo
My opening hand was:
Force of Will
Brainstorm
Brainstorm
Trygon Predator
Counterbalance
Tropical Island
Flooded Strand
Timmy won the die roll and elected to play first.
He led with Plateau, Kird Ape, and proceeded to put a dice on his Kird Ape, indicating two power. I reminded him that he didn’t have a Forest in play. He pointed to his Plateau, which he noticed was not a Forest. I thought about it for a moment, but let Kird Ape resolve.
I played Tropical Island and cast Brainstorm.
On his second turn, Timmy played Wooded Foothills, and this time he fetched out a Taiga. He attacked me for 2, and then played Wild Nacatl, which I Forced, pitching Trygon Predator.
On my second turn, I fetched a Tundra and cast Counterbalance.
On his third turn, he played another land, and cast Vindicate on my Counterbalance, and there was nothing I could do about that.
I cast Brainstorm and played Underground Sea and Dark Confidant on my third turn.
He attacked me with Kird Ape, and I took the damage. On my turn, I played Tarmogoyf, and Timmy’s life fell precipitously. He played a Goyf of his own, but I played out. I added ever more men to the board, and then won the game.
Game 2:
I sideboarded in three Thread of Disloyalty.
My opening hand:
Threads of Disloyalty
Force of Will
Daze
Nimble Mongoose
Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
Dark Confidant
Timmy mulliganed to 5 and cast Kird Ape off a Taiga. I played Strand into Tropical Island, and played Nimble Mongoose and passed the turn. Timmy played turn 2 Vexing Shusher. I played turn 2 Dark Confidant.
I cannot recall the exact sequence of plays that followed, but here is what I remember:
I played Threads of Disloyalty on his Vexing Shusher, he attacked me with Kird Ape, and I blocked with Shusher. Oddly, he played Gaea’s Might on his Kird Ape. Shusher was super dead.
He ended up playing another Vexing Shusher, which I sent farming with Swords to Plowshares. His life total then went from 17 to 13 to 6 to dead as my creatures overran him.
…
I wish I could remember more details from the match, but I already have a difficult enough time remember what my opening hands were.
The strange thing is that this is in complete contrast to my Vintage experience. The next day I played 2 rounds of Vintage (going 1-1) before I had to drop to due sheer exhaustion from the weekend (the next night we were up until 6am playing Type 4). I had a 3+ hour drive home, and I was afraid I wouldn’t make it back to Columbus unless I dropped and went home as soon as possible. Yet in those two rounds of Vintage I took no notes, but could recall my opening hands with crystal clarity at the conclusion of each match. I remembered very single card I drew, even now.
Why is it I can’t remember my opening hands in Legacy even after each game, but I can remember my opening hand in each game of a three-game match in Vintage at the end of the match? It makes little sense how I can have such a sharp, photographic memory for Vintage, but can remember comparatively little of my hands in Legacy.
To me, that just tells me that I have a lot more work to do in Legacy before I reach the level in the format that I want to reach if I want to be a serious competitor in Day 2 of Grand Prix: Chicago.
Round 2: Christopher Walton playing a UW Controlish/Landstill Variant
I think my opening hand had Nimble Mongoose, Dark Confidant, Daze, Force of Will, Trygon Predator, and lands.
I lost the die roll again, and was relegated to playing second.
Chris played an Island and passed the turn (he later revealed that he kept a two-land hand with Swords to Plowshares, Spell Snare, Humility, Standstill, and Wrath of God.)
I played a turn 1 Nimble Mongoose.
Chris claims that he went to play a turn 2 Standstill, which I Dazed. I do not doubt the veracity of his claim, but I am skeptical about the timing. I wouldn’t normally play a Daze when I have a creature on the board and he has nothing.
In any case, he did miss his turn 3 land drop, and I played Thoughtseize on my next turn, revealing:
Fact or Fiction
Brainstorm
Standstill
Humility
Spell Snare
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
I had a Force of Will in hand, so I wasn’t terribly concerned with any of these cards, but I figured that Humility would be the most problematic card to deal with if it resolved. I added another creature to the board, I think a Dark Confidant, which he Plowed, and a Counterbalance. I think I used Force of Will to counter his Spell Snare.
Then he uses Wrath of God my Goose and a freshly played Confidant, wiping my board except for Counterbalance. I quickly recover and play another Mongoose and a Goyf.
Here’s the critical play of the game. He taps three mana for Engineered Explosives,
I had played a Brainstorm and put Swords to Plowshares on top of a Trygon Predator, thinking that there was a better chance he’d play a one-mana spell than a three-mana spell. Imagine my surprise when he tapped three mana to play Engineered Explosives to get around my Counterbalance. I kicked myself for not thinking of that.
He activated Explosives and wiped my board except for the Nimble Mongoose that was continuing to pick away at his life. A swing of the Goose and the Confidant sent him to 12, and then the Goose, alone this time, sent him to 8, when he played Fact or Fiction.
Fact revealed:
Wrath of God
Elspeth
Eternal Dragon
Flooded Strand
Standstill
How should I split this? The Goose on the table was close to getting the job done. I just needed more time to play another creature and finish it off. Wrath of God seemed like the biggest threat. Eternal Dragon and Standstill seemed basically irrelevant. Elspeth seemed irrelevant since redundant, he already had an Elspeth in hand. So I split it 4 and 1. He took the pile of four, and Wrath of God went to his graveyard.
On his turn he played Elspeth and created a Soldier. At this point, I had a critical decision to make. I was going to Plow the Soldier token, but then should I attack the Elspeth or Chris? Since his life was at 8, and since I had another Plow on top of my library, I was hoping that I could win the race with Nimble Mongoose. That was a long-shot play. If I attacked Elspeth and killed it, he could play the second and I’d be in the same position. I needed to win with Elspeth on the table. Predictably, that plan did not work out. He had already made three Soldiers, and Elspeth had seven loyalty counters. Then on my endstep he cycled Decree of Justice when I scooped. He could untap and use Elspeth’s ultimate ability for the win.
This game had gone on for 30 minutes, which left us with 20 minutes for the rest of the match.
I brought in a pair of Krosan Grips.
Game 2:
My opening hand had Dark Confidant, Counterbalance, and Brainstorm. Here is what I remember:
I played a turn 2 Counterbalance, which he Forced, to my glee, since I had another in hand. I played a third turn Dark Confidant instead of Counterbalance, and played Counterbalance on the following turn. My hand soon was full of countermagic just in case anything passed through my Counterbalance lock. I used the card advantage to lock up the game and end it with Nimble Mongoose and Bob beats.
Game 3:
My opening hand had Flooded Strand, Tundra, Swords to Plowshares, Top, and Goose. I can’t remember much more of it. I do know that my hand was quite stacked when we ran out of time, and I could feel an edge, but we simply ran out of time and drew the game.
Round 3: Brian Fisher playing Landstill
Brian is a long-time Vintage player. I’ve faced him at least once in tournament play. He knocked me out of the Top 4 of the third StarCityGames.com Power 9 tournament. You can read this match, from five years ago, here.
Today, Brian was playing a Landstill variant.
I lost the die roll, and opened a great hand:
Island
Counterbalance
Thoughtseize
Ponder,
Force of Will
Dark Confidant
Daze
Brian played a land and passed the turn.
I topdecked Flooded Strand and played Thoughtseize, seeing this (all the information I needed to win the game):
Counterspell
Swords to Plowshares
Swords to Plowshares
Force of Will
Wrath of God
Wasteland
I took Force of Will so that I would not lose a counterwar.
He took his turn, played his Wasteland, and passed the turn. He refused to use it on me, clearly because he didn’t have any more lands to play.
I played my basic Island and played Counterbalance. Imagine my surprise when he Force of Willed it pitching Counterspell. I Forced his Force. He topdecked Force of Will on his turn. Must be nice.
I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I eventually took the game. Apologies for the sketchy analysis here.
Game 2:
My hand was creature-heavy, not the kind of hand I typically like with this deck. Being up a game, I decided that I’d run it.
Brian opened with Tropical Island.
I opened with turn 1 Thoughtseize again, and saw this:
Wasteland
Tarmogoyf
Standstill
Standstill
Swords to Plowshares
Engineered Explosives
I would normally take Standstill here, but he had two of them. I didn’t care much about Goyf, since I had my own Swords in hand. I nearly took Engineered Explosives, but settled on Swords to Plowshares at the last minute.
In retrospect, that was probably the worst card I could have taken from his hand, as spectators later informed me.
He used his Explosive to kill my Goyf and then followed it up with Standstill, which I had to break.
Over the course of the game I played all four of my Goyfs, and he countered or killed all of them. Soon, I was relying on weak cards to win the game, and it didn’t work. He overran me with his own Goyfs.
Game 3:
This game was singlehandedly won by Trygon Predator, which ensured that he couldn’t use his Factories to block my creatures, since Predator would kill them at the end of combat. He Plowed my Goyf, and Predator broke the stalemate.
Round 4: Anthony with RW Burn
Anthony’s decklist was fascinating. He was the only 3-0 player in the tournament at this point, and since I was 2-0-1 with the best tiebreakers, I was paired up to him.
I sat next to Anthony at the beginning of the tournament, so I knew what he was playing. I admit that I was somewhat smug. I thought this was going to be blowout. And it was. This match was a slaughter.
I mulliganed to six, and was not entirely unhappy with my hand. I laid turn 1 Mongoose, but it was a hand where there was little chance that I could build threshold quickly.
He opened the game with Mountain, Lightning Bolt to my head.
On his second turn, Anthony played a Plateau and cast Goblin Legionnaire.
I played two Goyfs, but they were too small to survive combat with the Goblins. This gave him plenty of time to draw burn spells and throw them at me. By the time my Goyfs were finally large enough, it didn’t matter. He threw both Goblins at my head and won the game.
Game 2:
Lady Luck could not have favored me much more in this game. Anthony had to mulligan to 5. Even better, I opened the game with turn 1 Underground Sea, Thoughtseize.
Here is what I saw:
Vexing Shusher
Lightning Bolt
Wooded Foothills
Magma Jet
Mountain
Of course, I took the Shusher.
He played turn 2 Magma Jet and I played Counterbalance. However, it was very porous, and he was able to Bolt me and then Chain Lightning me. I needed to find a way to lock up the game. I played a Dark Confidant to get some damage in and to begin drawing cards, but that just caused my life total fall further. By the time I had the lock going active, my life was 2 life. He was at 4 life, and I was now beating for 8 damage a turn, and one more swing would end the game. That’s when he topdecked Fireblast and I couldn’t stop it.
Round 5: Rich with Counterslivers
Rich is a Columbus regular, and a solid player. He played Slivers at the Meandeck Open, and made Top 8, so I figured he was probably playing the same deck.
Once again, I lost the die roll. However, I was quite pleased to have a perfect hand.
But it got better.
Rich opened the game with Plains, Aether Vial. I practically began salivating. I Forced the Aether Vial.
By turn 3 I had Dark Confidant and Counterbalance in play while he still failed to draw a second land.
And somehow I lost this game.
He first drew Mutavault. Two turns later he found a Flooded Strand and a steady stream of Slivers began hitting the table. I couldn’t do anything about it. A Muscle Sliver, Sinew Sliver, and Mutavault all gave him quite a bit of power on the table. I played a bunch of cantrips, shuffled my deck repeatedly, but I couldn’t find a single Swords to Plowshares. I added a second Dark Confidant to the board, and that just made my life fall even more rapidly. I managed to block up the ground a bit, but then Winged Sliver came down and he quickly overran me. By the size of my library, I calculated that I had seen about 40 cards of my deck, and not a single Swords to Plowshares. Had I seen one Plow, I think I would have won this game. I also misplayed several times with Ponder and Brainstorm, putting the wrong cards 2nd or 3rd cards deep.
Game 2:
This game was a battle. Rich played a steady stream of Slivers, and I tried my best to answer them with Plows. The fact that I drew Plows was one of the major differences between this game and the last. His life total twice upticked from 19 to 22 and later from 21 to 23, geological evidence marking the spot where I sent Slivers farming. The damage I suffered wasn’t from his creatures. It was my own Dark Confidant and other spells. Twice in this game, Dark Confidant revealed Force of will sending me from 16 to 11 and then to 6. Confidant then took me down a point at a time to 5.
I played a Goyf, but he had Relic of Progenitus, and removed the graveyards from the game. Fortunately, I had a Fetchland and a Swords in hand, so that I could quickly give him two power. I managed to draw a Blue cantrip that helped enlarge him further. He was at 9 life, and I could only deal 8 damage. Then I played Sensei’s Divining Top, and immediately realized the mistake. I could have countered my own Top to grow the Goyf on the table for lethal damage. I was so mad at myself for not having done that. I used the Top and activated it to put a Brainstorm into my hand. I played a fetchland and broke it to shuffle my library. I played Brainstorm and saw a Nimble Mongoose! I played it and Forced my Nimble Mongoose, giving my Goyf enough power to just barely win the game.
Game 3:
This game was long and complex and we were both at 1 life by the end of it all. The crowd was gathering around.
His first play in this game was Crystalline Sliver. My Plows and Threads in hand were suddenly mooted. I was able to clog up the ground so that he couldn’t attack. Dark Confidant kept me ahead in terms of card advantage. He managed to Counterspell my Goyfs, but he couldn’t stop everything. I started attacking with Dark Confidant, and he refused to block. He couldn’t attack me either, since I would block with the second Confidant that I got on the table. Finally, I managed to resolve a Goyf. I just needed to get the Goyf grow a bit before I could start striking. Finally, time was called, and I ran the math and figured that I could attack with two Dark Confidants and Goyf, leaving back Nimble Mongoose. He had Mutavault, Crystalline Sliver, and a Sinew Sliver in play, among other creatures. He got the best of it, and managed to only have one creature go down in the fight. However, I had another Goyf to add the table, and played Counterbalance to ensure that it would resolve. He swung me down to 1 life, and then on turn 4 of turns, I swung for victory.
Great match.
Top 8 Quarter-finals: Anthony with Goblins
This was a match I had been looking forward to with great anticipation. In the two tournaments I’d played in thus far, I had not faced this matchup. It would be a true test of my deck against an incredibly fast and powerful opponent.
For the sixth time on the day, I lost the die roll. I normally do not complaint about that. Generally, when people complain about that, they are usually exaggerating. I have never played into the Top 8 of a tournament never having won a single die roll to determine who goes first. Until now. Small consolation that my opponent mulliganed to 6 when he opened with Barbarian Ring into Goblin Lackey. I responded by playing Tundra, Swords to Plowshares.
Unconcerned, he played a second Lackey on turn 2 off the same land. This time, I played Nimble Mongoose. My opponent lacked a second mana source.
Although I had the right answers to his early assault, that doesn’t mean I could sustain it. Goblins is relentless in its assault, even when backed on its heels.
Goblins is sorely underestimated in Legacy. Lest we forget the best deck ever conceived in Legacy, Flash, we should also not forget that Goblins got second place in that same tournament, placing higher than every single other Flash deck besides the winner. The fact that Goblins was in the same league is something we should never forget. I also strongly believe that Goblins is anything but a simple deck to play. It’s a combo deck with many tutors and non-linear paths to victory. In round 14 or so of Grand Prix: Columbus, I was playing Flash combo, and managed to beat Chris Ripple in the third game, at 1 life. If Goblins players are playing at the same skill level as Chris, it is most certainly a major contender.
After missing two land drops while I Pondered and played a Goyf, he managed to get a second land and a Chrome Mox which he used to play a Goblin Warchief, which I let resolve. Since my men were turned sideways, he was able to attack me to 17 (the first damage came from breaking my turn 2 fetchland).
He played a Goblin Piledriver the next turn, which I plowed once he declared his attack step. This sent him to 15 and then down to 11 once I returned the favor. That’s where the beatings ended. He tried to play a Ringleader the next turn, after making his third land drop, but it was met with Daze.
He scooped up and we looked into our sideboards.
Game 2:
We shuffled up. He resolved a turn 1 Aether Vial, but I had a turn 2 Goyf. He couldn’t kill Goyf, and I started swinging for 3 damage a turn for three turns. He put a Piledriver into play and swung at me for 15 damage. I send it farming. He played a Mad Auntie. This card was so good for him! Not only were all of his creatures much larger, but he could block Tarmogoyf indefinitely. I had to get rid of it. I dug and dug and found an answer and sent her farming. Only by this time, it was a turn too late. His Aether Vial had been ramped to 5, and he sent a Siege-Gang Commander into the fray. He started sending Goblins at my head, and killed me before I could get Engineered Plague into play.
Game 3:
This game featured early double Goyf beatdown, and his life totals fell from 19 to 17 to 9. I had to Plow another Mad Auntie, since he went from 8 to 10, then to 6 and died. I ended the game not even having to play the Engineered Plague in hand.
Conclusion
My preparation for playing this deck for the Meandeck Open mostly involved testing Patrick’s list on Magic Workstation. My goal was to have a solid understanding of the decks various internal interactions and a baseline level of competence in the deck’s essential operations. My goal for the tournament was to learn more of the details of the deck’s workings in the proper context, a tournament setting. Remember, I went out of my way to play Patrick’s deck card for card as an expression of humility in the face of complex systems, both the deck itself and the Legacy tournament metagame in which I’d be running it. I wanted to make critical design changes only after I had the proper experience, meaning contextual knowledge, to support it.
That tournament gave me invaluable information about how to play certain matchups; sideboarding and how to design my sideboard; and in general improved my know-how with the deck, especially with respect to those conditions that exist in a tournament. However, in learning someone else’s deck, you come to the table without a clear sense of purpose. This is compounded by fact that Aggro-Control decks don’t always need one. If you just play the cards drawn well, you’ll likely win the game. In any case, my focus was primarily on playing the cards drawn in a logical order and trying to win various skirmishes without having a very well-thought-out sense of the deck’s game plan aside from, ‘play creatures and win.’ In this tournament, I ascended further up the learning curve.
While I began to think more strategically in this tournament, I still had a lot of learning to do. Some of my losses in this tournament came at times in which I thought I had made all of the correct tactical plays: building card advantage, searching through my deck with Blue cantrips, and the like. These were the plays that my experience in Vintage tells me wins games. However, that experience can misguide me as much as it can help. In Vintage, cycling through your deck quickly is much more valuable since there are incredibly powerful restricted cards that simply end the game, like Tinker and Yawgmoth’s Will. In Legacy, while there are definitely power variances, they aren’t as dramatic. Playing Ponders and Brainstorms doesn’t lead you immediately to the win. Drawing a bunch of cards, by itself, does not translate into a giant Yawgmoth’s Will. You have to actually win the game directly, not by strategic proxy.
This leads me to two specific thoughts. First, I am overvaluing Dark Confidant at times. Second, I may be misplaying Ponder and Brainstorm more than I realize. Let me break it down. Many of the games that I lost were directly attributable to Dark Confidant. Specifically, the first Confidant was so good that I would often dig and try to find and play a second. While there is no creature I would rather play on turn 2, the second Confidant is not nearly as important or valuable as the first. I made the mistake several times of going too aggressively for two Confidants, and lost games because of it. Let me explain what I mean. Generally, when I have a second Confidant, it’s because I’ve selected Confidant over another card with Ponder or Brainstorm. That means that I could have shuffled away Confidant and kept some other card. Those other cards may have proved better. In a sense, it’s sort of like the flaw in Vintage decks that just draw cards. At some point, drawing cards isn’t as important as actually doing something to your opponent. While Confidant is still, actually, the best creature in the deck (although it’s power is related to the power/speed of Goyf), at some point I have to more effectively transition to beatdown mode. I don’t have to accumulate a critical mass of card advantage before I can turn on the aggro engine. I need to do both at the same time.
This is related to Ponder and Brainstorm. I may be using both cards too aggressively. Aside from Dark Confidant and Counterbalance, there are no sources of direct card advantage in this deck. There is no Blue draw engine, like Thirst For Knowledge or Intuition plus Accumulated Knowledge, for example. And there are no restricted cards to dig for that will just win the game. There is no Black Lotus or Ancestral Recall to Ponder into. I am wondering if I am automatically playing Ponder and Brainstorm too quickly without giving enough thought to how to maximize their usage by waiting. This is especially true of Brainstorm. Some of my best play on the day was the times and places where I just held Brainstorm in hand until the right moment.
This leads me to a thought which, I think, synthesizes both realizations and perhaps explains them. I think I am often too focused on the tactics, and not enough on strategy. I think I spend too much time with the deck drawing cards and not enough time focusing on winning. I spend too much time working with Dark Confidant and Blue cantrips, and not enough searching for Goyf. I only realized this after the tournament, as I looked back, that I wasn’t properly integrating early game development with a strategic vision. I was simply playing cards and drawing cards based on the assumption that the creatures would follow. But that isn’t necessarily the case. It requires focus to get what you want, especially when your main source of damage is a four-copy card: Tarmogoyf. I may have been valuing means over ends too much, looking for more Ponders and Brainstorms rather than Goyfs, without realizing that the purpose of those cards is to serve and support the beatdown engine. The next time I play this deck in a tournament, I will have a much improved sense of strategy and the relation of tactics to strategy. I will play it less like a solitaire deck, which is how I played it most of the time, and fit and mold a strategy to beat my opponent. I will try to balance all of the decks requirements more carefully from beatdown, to card advantage, to tempo advantage, like juggling three or four balls at the same time, keeping them all in the air.
Interestingly, I lost every single die roll on the day, but I still managed to make Top 4 with only one match loss. No wonder my Dazes weren’t that good on the day. I played 16 games of Magic, and I played all but six of them on the draw. It’s good to know that I can still win almost every match without having to win die rolls.
I hope you enjoyed my tournament report.
Until next time…