There are many decisions a competitive Magic player has to make at a tournament to be successful. There is one key decision, however, that occurs before a tournament, one that limits or expands a player's ability to win in Constructed Magic. This is the choice of which deck to play.

Deciding which deck to play can be complicated. One has to consider how a given deck does against the best decks in the format. There is also the metagame itself to consider, and to determine whether a given deck is well suited for such an environment. A deck can be stellar in one environment and disastrous in another.

Given the time constraints most people have, they cannot always test a given deck against most of the decks in a format. They have to base their decision both on their limited testing and what they believe a particular deck is capable of. This belief when based on actual testing and realistic assessment of the format can allow a player to make a very good decision about which deck to play.

Every player who plays a Constructed format faces this decision before each tournament. It is the most important decision. By making a poor decision, your chances of winning are severely limited despite how well you play. By making a good decision, you may win games despite any play mistakes that you make.

What follows is the decision making process that I went through before deciding to play Eva Green (B/G Suicide) at two different tournaments in Vestal, NY. For each tournament, I explain my reasoning for choosing the deck, and walk through which decks I faced in each tournament. Finally, I compare my deck choice to the decks that made Top 8 for each tournament, and try to determine what was the best choice for each tournament and whether my decision to play Eva Green was a good one.

May 30th Vestal, NY Lotus Tournament

This tournament was advertised with a very large prize support, with the first prize being a Black Lotus and prizes extending to the Top 16 players. After deciding to attend the tournament, I was very puzzled by which deck to play. I believed that turnout would be higher than most tournaments, and might be around 100 players (it ended up being 132).

With a large tournament like this, it was difficult to know what the metagame would be like. It seemed safe enough to assume that CounterTopGoyf decks which had done so well at the Grand Prix: Chicago a couple of months earlier would see play in significant numbers. Unsure about what else might be there, I figured that there would be some mix of tribal decks like Elves and Merfolk, other aggressive decks like Zoo and Goyf Sligh, and perhaps some other control decks. I expected very little in the way of Storm Combo and other combo decks like Ichorid.

I started out by considering playing Permanent Waves (High Tide deck) or even some Ad Nauseam storm deck, but they seemed like suboptimal choices if I thought that there would be a good amount of Counterbalance decks. My next instinct was to choose Ichorid, not only because it had a good game against CounterTopGoyf decks, but it also had such a phenomenal game 1 against most Legacy decks, and many sideboards really don't have much in the way of dedicated graveyard hate cards. I decided against Ichorid partially because it was what I played at Grand Prix Chicago and the deck just failed to operate properly. I had to mull many times and my dredges were very poor. I was not ready to try it again in what I believed would be at least a 7 round swiss tournament. Then I considered playing a CounterTopGoyf deck since I believed it was the best deck in the format, but I had no particular build of the deck and no specific design to defeat the mirror match.

I finally arrived at the decision of playing Eva Green (B/G Suicide). I had played the deck a week earlier in a much smaller tournament in Northern Virginia and had made Top 8. Paul Rietzl's success with the deck at Grand Prix: Chicago also had some influence on my decision. Lastly, I had a build of the deck that I was confident was very good, and a sideboard that should address most of the decks that I expected to see that day.

Here's the list that I played:

Eva Green (B/G Suicide) Featured by Anwar Ahmad on 2009-07-12 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17736_Unlocking_Legacy_The_Most_Important_Decision.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Hypnotic Specter 4 Nantuko Shade 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Tombstalker Instants 4 Dark Ritual 4 Snuff Out Sorceries 4 Hymn to Tourach 3 Maelstrom Pulse 4 Sinkhole 4 Thoughtseize	Basic Lands 5 Swamp Lands 4 Bayou 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Polluted Delta 4 Wasteland	Sideboard: 3 Choke 4 Engineered Plague 4 Krosan Grip 3 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Unmask
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

The results of my rounds:

Round 1 – Goblins Win (2-0)
Round 2 – CounterTopGoyf Win (2-1)
Round 3 – CounterTopGoyf Win (2-1)
Round 4 – Elf Survival Loss (0-2)
Round 5 – Ad Nauseam Tendrils Loss (1-2)
Round 6 – BGW Survival Win (2-0)
Round 7 – Ichorid Win (2-1)
Round 8 – It's the Fear (Intuition Control) Win (2-1)

Swiss Record: 6-2 came in 10th place and played in the 9-16 playoff

9-16 playoff – TES (Ad Nauseam Tendrils variant) Loss (1-2)

My expectation of what I might see at the tournament was only somewhat accurate. I did face 3 Counterbalance decks (It's the Fear plays CounterTop as well) and beat all of them. I did not expect much Storm and Ichorid, but I played as many of those decks as I did CounterTop decks. Both losses to Storm were to be expected, as Storm has become increasingly hard to beat with Eva Green despite having cards like Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach. The other third of the decks were divided among Elves, Goblins, and a Survival deck.

I came in 10th in the Swiss out of 132 players. My choice of deck was quite good, but it probably was not the best choice. The decks that made Top8 can probably provide some insight into what perhaps were better choices for this tournament.

Top 8

Merfolk
Merfolk
Merfolk
Landstill
Elf Survival
Ichorid
Goyf Sligh
Zoo

Merfolk did very well by putting three players into the Top 8. Let us assume for the sake of argument that I played against the same decks in the swiss, but my deck was Merfolk instead of Eva Green. Would I have done better? I most likely would have lost to Goblins in the first round and that would have changed my subsequent match-ups, but let us assume that the match-ups turned out the same way. I would have probably beaten the two CounterTopGoyf decks, as Merfolk is very strong against Blue decks. Elf Survival would have been difficult to beat, so let us assume that Merfolk would have lost. I would have most likely done better against Ad Nauseam Tendrils, as countermagic is much stronger against modern Storm decks than discard. BGW Survival was not an optimal build, and a tuned Merfolk deck would probably won there as well. As for Ichorid, some Merfolk decks run Relic of Progenitus, and have the ability to remove Bridge from Below by sacrificing Cursecatcher in addition to having a decent clock. Merfolk would have probably been as good as Eva Green here. Finally, Merfolk would have most likely have done excellent against It's the Fear, as it’s another Blue deck. With two losses to Goblins and Elf Survival, my swiss record seems like it would not have turned out any better.

Would Zoo or Goyf Sligh have done better for me? Well it would most likely lose to the Ad Nauseam deck in the Swiss, but it’s possible to come out of the Swiss around 7-1 with the match-ups above. Not that you are definitely ahead against the rest of the decks, but the match-ups seem to be a bit more favorable than for either Merfolk or Eva Green.

If I had to do it over again, what deck would I choose? I think that Merfolk or Zoo/Goyf Slight variant were most likely the best choices since each of these decks had multiple appearances in the Top 8, and even looking back on my swiss matches, these decks could have done as well and potentially better than Eva Green.

June 27th Vestal, NY 1K Tournament

This tournament was bound to have much smaller turnout and resemble more of typical metagame in upstate NY. I was betting on a mix of tribal decks, aggressive decks like Zoo, and control decks like Landstill. I had been tuning a version of Permanent Waves and was looking forward to playing it. I was still worried about its matchup against Counterbalance decks even though these decks are not prevalent in that metagame from my experience. I decided to go with Eva Green again because it had done quite well in the previous tournament.

The results of my rounds:

Round 1 – Zoo Loss (0-2)
Round 2 – Merfolk Win (2-0)
Round 3 – TES (Ad Nauseam variant) Loss (0-2)
Round 4 – Bye Win (2-0)
Round 5 – Zoo Loss (1-2)

With only 27 players at the tournament it was only 5 rounds. I was out of contention by round 3 with my loss to TES. I faced a mix of decks that I really do not want to see with this deck. Zoo is not an easy matchup and my two losses to it support this conclusion. TES loss is almost expected at this point as I have not been able to beat the deck in recent memory. Since Eva Green was a poor choice for this tournament, let us turn to the Top 8 for some better choices.

Top 8

Merfolk
Landstill
Landstill
Landstill
It's the Fear (Intuition Control)
TES (Ad Nauseam Variant)
Canadian Threshold
Zoo

Landstill was the big winner here. Looking back at my match-ups, I'm not sure Landstill is particularly strong against Zoo, Merfolk, or TES. I do not believe I would have done any better with Landstill than Eva Green. It’s possible that the decks I faced were not particularly representative of the metagame at large. This Top 8 does have 6 Blue decks. These decks all had Force of Will to fight the combo decks, and enough creatures or enough removal to fight through the more aggressive decks.

In retrospect, this might have been the perfect metagame for Permanent Waves. That deck really shines against aggressive and tribal decks, as well as against control decks with very a slow clock like Landstill. It also has access to Force of Will and the ability to combo off to compete with other combo decks.

This type of thought process is what each player should try to do before a tournament. Testing every matchup is usually not feasible, but making assessments about how your potential deck choice might fare in a particular metagame is. Without any specific knowledge of the metagame, try to consider how your deck stacks up against the best decks in the format as well as any other popular decks that have seen play in recent tournaments. This can lead to incorrect decisions, like mine to play Eva Green at the June 27th tournament, but at least it’s a reasonable way to approach a very difficult and a very important decision.

Until next time…

Anwar