'Lo, all...

United States Regionals are three weeks away, and I still find myself up a proverbial Geographical Formation of Excrement Without A Proper Wooden Propulsion Device.

Join the club, right?

Three things that should be obvious by now:

1) "See Spot Run" is the worst movie ever, although "Mission to Mars" and "Coneheads" give it some stiff competition;
2) Everyone lost their asses on the South Region in the Men's Basketball tournament (Indiana State? Penn State in the Sweet 16? Hey Vito, I want my money back);
3) Fires is the best deck in Standard until someone proves otherwise.

Counter-Wrath. Blah blah. Counter-Rebels. Blah blah.

Said decks are certainly good and tend to smash Fires quite often, but without wasting any more precious time on the subject, why Fires is still the best deck in the format boils down to one thing:

It wins bad matchups. The great decks in any format (especially beatdown decks) can persevere the hate and just go into auto-pilot, and there's not much you can do about it other than answer with the perfect hand yourself. And even then it doesn't matter sometimes. Never mind that it ape-smashes the good matchups like Cornelius breaking it down on Charlton Heston's head.

Damned dirty apes.

Prove me wrong, please. I'M trying to prove myself wrong.

Like I've said before, I don't mind playing the best deck in a format, no matter where it originated. Why WOULD you mind?

"I hate playing the best deck in the format! Damn you people playing good decks!"
- Some Bitter Guy who just went 0-2, drop

*takes a deep breath* We'll move on shortly, but once and for all, ENOUGH of this nonsense.

The whole emotional backlash against decks like Fires and Counter-Rebel (and Trix, and Survival, and Parallax Replenish, and Pandeburst, and...) is just really, REALLY silly. The point of playing Magic is to have fun. The point of Tournament Magic is to win, and hopefully to have fun doing it. Going rogue is great if the idea is sound, but why WOULDN'T you play with a deck that gives you the best chance to win, in general? All these impassioned pleas otherwise are simply ridiculous.

At least I'm a little more caring than most. My friend Ben refuses to play anyone online who drops a forest first turn but isn't playing Fires. All decks should be fun to play. Some decks are for fun and laughs only. They most definitely have their place in the food chain (although Food Chain itself has no place anywhere). Let me show you my U/G Vitalize/Elf-Stroke deck sometime. But testing against poop when I'm trying to move up as a player accomplishes absolutely nothing. Sorry, guys.

Example:

Armadillo Cloak on Blinding Angel with Dueling Grounds: Good Rogue Idea (or at least, Better Rogue Idea)

Tidal Kraken.dec: Bad Rogue Idea. Bad Idea, period.

Or Rogue might be a Bad Idea, period. Who knows.

What people fail to realize, though, is that these "netdecks" exist in a vacuum. They were a direct reaction to the field around them at that particular event. Not even the people who BUILT these decks probably play the exact same decks now. Do you think you'll see Chevy Fires at Regionals? Do you think Brian Kibler still plays The Red Zone card for card? Does he even play it? Doubtful. The decks have evolved between now and then. And how many people have you seen take one of these supposed netdecks and win a MAJOR event without any playtesting or tweaking? I'd have to lean towards few if any.

Ok, damn, I'm done talking about this already. So you shush, and I'll shush.

Why *I* don't want to play Fires or whatnot if at all possible is the mirror match. Sure, there are factors to take into account like play skill, matchup familiarity, and preparation - but more often than not, it comes down to missing a land drop here and there, or just drawing the cards when your opponent didn't. Oooh look, I play first, good game.

Though I may walk through the shadow of the Ohio Valley of death, I shall fear no evil... because I am the baddest mother in the valley. Or something.

I still don't want to play the mirror for five hours, though.

So what's left?

IS there anything left that can beat the Unholy Trinity without rolling over to one of them?

I'm trying, really I am.

Binary 21 has welcomed me aboard, and I've got to say that we've got a scary amount of playtest data floating around right now. I can't imagine what's going to come to the forefront here within the next two weeks. Interesting times, to say the least. But not interesting as in ancient Chinese curse "interesting". Good "interesting". Whether or not I am the "Son of Brokenness," as Mike Mason called me, has yet to be seen. I'm more along the lines of just a straight S.O.B. instead of the SoB. I'm probably closer to O.D.B. for god's sake.

That guy's my hero...anyone who can collect food stamps and drive to the welfare office in a limo is just a swell guy.

If I can just find a gang sign for West Virginia, I'm all good. Living down the hallway from Randy Moss in college, you'd think I'd know some. Or some other things I won't get into.

But as far as people complaining about Invasion's and Planeshift's card pools and decks being built for them, woe is me, I can't be creative, blah blah, I have two words for you:

Terminal Moraine.

Use the damned thing.

*Insert Part Of Article Where I Talk About All My Tech But Refuse To Share Any*

I've been working feverishly on a deck ever since the first preliminary spoilers for Planeshift were made available back in early February. I've been agonizing over the last two to four cards now for at least three weeks, and it's driving me up the wall, because my results are showing that if I can beat Fires 50% of the time, this deck utterly wrecks everything else in the field if played properly. That's really no exaggeration. I wouldn't lie to you, fair reader. It's the whole "getting the Fires matchup up to 50%" part that is throwing me for a loop.

Hi Carl - welcome to the boat we're all stuck in.

So, I played in my first sanctioned Standard tournament over the weekend in a long while (had been slogging through some Extended and my fair share of Invasion Sealed) and ran the deck through the motions for the first time in real-life action. Playtesting online is certainly valuable, but it really doesn't compare to getting down in the trenches and swinging the bayonettes yourself.

So, how do I tell you how things went without letting you know what I'm playing? Well...I remember some guy named Wakefield a long time ago writing a tournament report about a deck he wasn't allowed to reveal, so he used code names for all the contents. Tech indeed. So while I'm certainly no Wakefield, have fun guessing (Caution: Obscure References and Sarcasm Ahead, 5 Miles)...here's a little ditty I call...

T1000

4x Big Toe
4x Omeed
4x Forster
1x Leonardo
1x Raphael
1x Donatello
1x Michaelangelo
4x Bad Thunderclap
4x Black Carriage Killer
4x Spicy Gumdrop
4x Pink Slip
4x Gene Simmons (white-bordered!)
8x Best Basic Land In Magic (foil!)
8x Second Best Basic Land In Magic (plain old cardboard!)
4x Best Ice Age Dual In Magic (it taps for either color that the Best Basic Land and the Second Best Basic Land in Magic can produce, therefore making it the Best Ice Age Dual In Magic)
4x Bad Icy Manipulator

Sideboard:
15x of the Most Amazing Sideboard Tech Cards Known to Man

So, how'd I do?

I only lost two matches all day, once in the Swiss, and once in the single-elimination rounds.

To Fires.

To the same Fires deck.

Played by the same person.

In three games both times.

Color me pissed. Just don't Color Me Badd.

The re-match was quite possibly the most frustrating match I've played in my six-year Magic career, because it was so non-interactive and so non-skill-based, plus I had everyone and their mother telling me Fires was a horrific match-up when I KNOW the results are better if my deck co-operates (winnable but difficult, but certainly not impossible as the peanut gallery was saying).

First game he keeps a hand with a bunch of land, a Lawnmower, and a Fires. Did I mention he rolled an eighteen to my seventeen? That's why I'm not on the Tour; my dice-rolling skills are severely underdeveloped. Anyways, he plays the Elf, which I answer with a Gumdrop. He plays a second land, I keep him at bay with my Bad Icy Manipulator for a turn or so, drop Leonardo, drop Raphael, and then them and Omeed finish him off. All your blockers are belong to us. I win 20-0.

Second game I paris to 6, and am forced to keep a horrible hand with one Icy, one Gene Simmons, one Forster, one of the Most Amazing Sideboard Cards Known To Man, and some other stuff. I drop the Icy and say go. I fail to draw any land that produces the Most Broken Color of Mana Ever, and he draws a Bowl and uses it. My next card drawn? The Best Ice Age Dual In Magic. Bowl. My next card after that? The Best Ice Age Dual In Magic. Bowl. Three lands, all non-basic, no more than one of them on my side of the table at any given time. Boy, is this the most skill-based game I've ever played in my life.

Third game, I start using the Bad Icy on his only source of green mana, and I get up to around nine mana total and I haven't drawn a single card to turn sideways. I use some of my Amazing Sideboard Tech to get rid of two Saproling Bursts, but seeing how I'm sitting on nine mana, I can't capitalize on the nine-turn window he's given me. What does he draw off the top immediately after I get rid of the second Burst? Try the third one. I'm able to get him down to seven life with the Bad Thunderclap and the Black Carriage Killer, but he reminds me of the Earthquake that I saw the numerous times I peeked at it, and I enter the scoop phase.

Now, gentle reader, if I can get him down to seven life with absolutely NO creatures on the board to turn sideways, what happens if I draw even one threat and swing a couple of times? I go on to the semi-finals and smash the rest of the Counter-Rebel and U/W decks in the room. But I didn't, and I didn't.

Some Disheartening.

Especially considering that I played a game against Fires before the tournament as a warm-up and won the race easily both games, despite drawing six of the Second Best Basic Lands In Magic and not drawing the Best Basic Land In Magic until my seventh land drop. And I STILL won.

So, I'm going to continue to hold out hope. The deck is simply too good against everything else to abandon, if I can just tweak this matchup even 5% more in my favor. I'm going to go back to the drawing board and playtest like it's my damned job. I will try to draw more than three non-basic lands as mana against a Dust Bowl. I will not sell out unless I absolutely have to. I will beat people about the head and face with Omeed.

I'm due. I honestly feel that. If I didn't feel that, I wouldn't bother. Confidence, not arrogance. Now it's just my responsibility to not squander the chance.

And that's the hardest part of all.

See you at Death Valley. I won't be fearing any evil. Just my bad matchups. In the meantime...

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house,

Carl J.
Zeke2517 on mIRC
The King of Greyhounds