My friends and I had spent a couple weeks playtesting various matchups, but that often seemed to turn into "I want to test my new rogue deck against the top decks." That's certainly helpful in determining a new deck's potential, but it's not the best way to tune an archetypical deck for States.
Of course, I'm the resident netdecker of my group, so I suppose I'm the only one who cares about that issue.
Still, in what testing we did, we were unable to find anything that could consistently boast a win rate of over 50% against U/G - at least not without terribly compromising its other matchups. That certainly doesn't mean that such a deck doesn't exist (see Astroglide, which I'm embarrassed to admit we never got around to testing), but it means none of us were going to be playing it. After a bit of agonizing, I decided to just go with the flow and play the "best deck." I took it to a Friday night Type 2 event to get a feel for the deck in a tournament setting, and while I didn't fare very well that evening I did get some good advice on sideboarding from Jay Schneider. Perhaps I didn't listen well enough, though, since I ended up missing Top 8 on a sideboarding error...
More on that later.
I won't bother talking about the trip on Sunday morning, since I just made the twenty-minute drive down to the Seattle Center from my home up in north Seattle. There were plenty of people at the tournament already by the time I got there, and it ended up being a 124-player field. I felt good about my deck choice, and after collecting a few cards from friends to complete the sideboard, this is what I played:
WonderDog (my favourite of this deck's myriad names)
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Wonder
3 Roar of the Wurm
4 Circular Logic
4 Aether Burst
3 Deep Analysis
3 Careful Study
2 City of Brass
1 Centaur Garden
10 Forest
10 Island
Sideboard:
4 Naturalize
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Compost
3 Spellbane Centaur
If I had to make any changes to the deck, I might move two Naturalize into the maindeck (replacing a Deep Analysis and a Roar of the Wurm, most likely... it's a big help in game 1 against Opposition, Wake, Astroglide, or Worship), which makes room in the side for either two Diverts or two Centaur Glades.
Most of my friends ended up playing a B/g beatdown deck with Braids and Living Wish and all sorts of Nantuko Husk/Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend craziness, backed up with Oversold Cemetery. I thought it looked like a fun deck, but I wanted a little less trickery and a little more fat... so I was quite happy with my choice.
After a bit of waiting around, the judges had everyone sit down at assigned seats to make announcements. I think the only announcement was that the 1st round pairings had been put up, though... so off we went.
Round 1: Dan Tibbles, Enchantress/Wake
Dan's the owner of Cardhaus Games, which is pretty much the place to play in Seattle proper. I played in a Type 2 event there on Friday night, and played a few games against Dan and this deck, so luckily for me I knew what was coming. Still, I was feeling a little despair going into this match, since I knew just what his deck was capable of.
Game 1 started off pretty well; I dropped the standard assortment of beefy critters, and Dan couldn't seem to find a single Verduran Enchantress or Enchantress's Presence. He Pacifism'd (Pacified?) one of my green men and tapped out to play Mirari's Wake, but I was able to beat for enough on my next turn to end the game. One lucky win, in the books.
Game 2 wasn't very different, much to my surprise. He found the Verdurans this time, but couldn't seem to find anything else. Again, a single Pacifism wasn't enough to stop me from killing him on turn 5 or so.
1-0, 2-0
Wow, that was lucky. Don't feel too bad for Dan, though, since he went 5-0-1 the rest of the way to finish in 10th place.
Round 2: Noah Sandler, U/G Madness
The much-anticipated mirror match. I was expecting this (just like every other U/G player, I'm sure) but it's not a very exciting matchup to give commentary on, so bear with me. I did have one advantage in that Noah wasn't running Roar of the Wurm, so at the very least I could make bigger threats than him.
Game 1: I busted out of the gates with one of those nasty U/G hands everyone is familiar with. Noah had a pretty bad opening, Careful Studying on turn 1 and discarding two Forests. Ouch. My beefy creatures smacked through his belated defenses to take the game.
Game 2: Noah got out triple Merfolk Looter technology this game... That's kinda hard to deal with. He also had Spellbane Centaur (I couldn't seem to find any of mine), negating my Aether Bursts. When he found Wonder, it was all over.
Game 3: It was my turn to drop Spellbane and Wonder - and despite a great deal of last-minute card drawing on his part, Noah couldn't find a single Wonder.
Hey, I warned you that the U/G mirror isn't very interesting.
2-0, 4-1
Ahhh - it feels good to win your first two rounds. And it happens rarely enough to me that I've yet to become numb to the feeling. I went and sat down across from my next opponent, but in the midst of shuffling I noticed the judges take down the pairings and put up new ones. Sounds like a repair, and that's exactly what it was... And if I was thrilled to be 2-0, I was decidedly un-thrilled about my next opponent: My friend and playgroup-mate, Ben.
Round 3: Ben Tobias, B/g Beatdown
Wow, this is the third round in a row where I've pretty much known the exact contents of my opponent's deck. Of course, pretty much everyone knows my decklist, too....
Game 1: Manascrew is a terrible thing, and its chosen target this game was Ben. He scooped preemptively on about turn 3, realizing that by that point he had no chance against my flying Rootwalla, Mongrel, and Wurm.
Game 2: Ben drew land this game! And he proceeded to use those lands to play monsters, which in turn smashed me. In truth, I don't remember this game very well, but I do know I got him down to five before I lost.
Game 3: Pretty much a beating. Ben had to stay on defense from the very beginning, while I sat back and beat for a while. He Living Wished for a Silklash Spider (before I even had Wonder in the yard), but wanted to make sure it would resolve... So he dropped a Mesmeric Fiend to check it out. The only problem was, I had two Circular Logics in my hand, and Fiend could only take one. My monsters finally sprouted wings, and swung for the win.
3-0, 6-2
Round 4: Christian Robertsen, AstroGlide
Ack. The deck I hadn't playtested against at all... And I think it showed in this match.
Game 1: Christian resolves an early Lightning Rift and goes to town. He cycles a Slice and Dice to wipe my side of the board (two Looters and a Rootwalla, I think) and Shock me in the process. I scoop when he resolves a second Rift.
Game 2: Beatdown as usual. I drop the standard menagerie, and quickly reduce Christian to very low life. He manages to get an Exalted Angel out, and hopes I'll forget that he dies as a state-based effect before the Angel's life-gain resolves. Luckily, I know that ruling well, and swing with everything.
Game 3: Beatdown again, but this time from the opposite side of the table. Christian drops turn 3 face-down Angel, turn 4 morph it, turn 5 another face-down Angel, turn 6 morph it. I simply couldn't handle a sixteen-point life swing every turn. (To be fair, what decks could? - The Ferrett) Man, and just when I thought I had a chance...
3-1, 7-4
Round 5: Matt Heuett, G/W Beats
This was the first round I played someone I didn't know. I'd heard a little about the G/W beatdown decks, but I hadn't been terribly impressed with them. Anurid Brushhopper is okay, but I'll take Arrogant Wurm over it any day, thank you.
Game 1: The lesson of this game was that flying green men are better than their land-bound cousins. The other lesson was that Aether Burst is really good against monsters with Elephant Guides on them. I delayed Matt long enough to swing over with a few creatures for the win.
Game 2: Matt got down the quick beats this game, and took me to 2 before I knew what happened. Still, I started to stabilize and felt good about the game... I had a Mongrel, a couple Rootwallas, and a Wurm on the table, so I didn't figure he could get anything through my defenses. Suddenly, though, Commander Eesha appears on the other side of the table... Yikes. I couldn't get through for enough to kill him, and the Commander could swing right through my huge green guys to take me out... and she did.
Game 3: The Commander decided to stay in her ready-room this game, while my assorted critters applied the beats. Nothing spectacular here, just a lot of green fat growing wings and beating down. Aether Burst was once again excellent against his Brushhoppers and the rest.
4-1, 9-5
Round 6: Shaun Albrecht, U/G Opposition
Game 1: I thought I was in another mirror match, since we were both playing green guys and Looters. I saw that he played Call of the Herd, which should immediately have made me realize he had Opposition in there somewhere, but I just didn't make the connection. He never played an Opposition this game, though, and Wonder sealed the deal.
Game 2: I had sided in Spellbanes since they're good in the mirror, but I had left the Naturalizes in the board, not realizing he was playing Opposition. I met his turn 3 Opposition (via Birds) with my turn 3 Spellbane, but he just went to work on my lands and played out a bunch of blockers. I never found the Wonder that I needed, and eventually succumbed to a number of Elephants and Squirrels.
Game 3: Well, I learned my lesson from the previous game and sided in the Naturalizes... So this time when he dropped turn 3 Opposition, I was ready. By the time he found another it was too late, Wonder was in the 'yard, and his life was too low for it to make a difference.
Wonder is broken.
5-1, 11-6
I was in pretty rarified air at this point, sitting at 5th place on the standings. My tiebreakers were good, so I hoped to be paired against someone willing to draw...
Round 7: Ian Ryan, MBC
... But such was not to be. Ian also had 15 points... But while my tiebreakers were the best in our point group, his were the worst, a full 10 percentage points below mine. He knew he couldn't draw, so we had to play it out.
Game 1: MBC is a nightmare game 1. Innocent Blood, Chainer's Edict, Smother, Mutilate, Echoes... That's pretty much what he did. I still felt good when I had a Wurm on the table and he'd run out of cards in hand, but he proceeded to topdeck three removal spells in a row. With nothing left but land on my side of the board, he dropped an Undead Gladiator to beat for the win.
Game 2: Remember that sideboarding mistake I mentioned so long ago? This is where I made it. Everyone knows that MBC plays Mirari, right? And everyone knows that Mirari, should it resolve, makes MBC absolutely nuts - right?
I forgot to bring in Naturalize, and man did I ever pay for it.
He pulled off the early Echoes again, but there was still a lot of good stuff left in my library... All my Mongrels, Arrogant Wurms, and Roars. I even had Compost down. But it didn't matter, since he resolved Mirari and absolutely worked me. It didn't help that I drew a whole lot of land at the end of the game, but by then it probably didn't matter that much. So down I went... And so did my chances of making Top 8.
I didn't stick around to watch the Top 8, but it ended up looking like this:
1. Tony Tsay
2. Zac Mahlum
3. Ian Ryan
4. Jesse Wilke
5. Jason Barker
6. Jory Goehner
7. Jay Schneider
8. Christian Robertsen
So as it turned out, both of the players I lost to made Top 8. Tony Tsay ended up winning the whole thing, in his very first States appearance. He was playing a modified U/G Madness, with Cunning Wish and an appropriate sideboard. I finished up in 12th place, which at least is better than my showing from a year ago (I think I finished 49th that time... Not too good).
That pretty much wraps it up... Thanks for reading!
Zach Luther
zluther@hotmail.com
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