I. Introduction and History
With the rotation of Extended looming on the horizon many current Extended decks are faced with two possibilities: extinction or evolution. Decks like Aluren that will be losing their namesake card along with other supporting cast members cannot possibly hope to continue on in the brave new world of post-rotation Extended. Mind's Desire will certainly be losing many of its key cards, however it may be able to survive the rotation by evolving. I have recently been developing and playtesting a new Mind's Desire deck with the intent of finding a version that will be a competitive force in the new Extended environment (or current Online Extended). This article discusses the past, present and future of Mind's Desire decks and includes an Online Extended tournament report that you don't want to miss. It also features my latest build and goes over the upgrades I've made to the deck.
Around the time of its release in Scourge, Mind's Desire was heralded as the best combo enabler since several Urza Block cards ruined magic for a short stint in the late '90s. Zvi Mowshowitz once called Mind's Desire a "mistake" and added that "R & D might end up regretting [printing] it". The card is synonymous with combo, and the Storm mechanic lends itself to the degenerate goal of most combo decks; to kill the opponent on one explosive turn. It turns out that Mind's Desire has never reached the dominant status that other combo decks like Trix, or Tolarian Academy did. It has instead managed to do quite well without being unfair enough to warrant a banning (although Frantic Search was banned as an attempt to neuter Mind's Desire and Enchantress decks).
Last Extended season Mind's Desire was a major player on both the Grand Prix and Pro Tour Qualifier circuits taking home a more than its fair share of top eight spots. Any deck that performed as well as Mind's Desire did is one that needs to be examined when preparing for post-rotation Extended. For reference here is the Mind's Desire deck that Osyp Lebedowicz used to make Top 8 at Grand Prix: Boston, 2005:
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Sapphire Medallion
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mind's Desire
3 Snap
3 Intuition
3 Cunning Wish
2 Deep Analysis
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Brain Freeze
2 Turnabout
3 Sunscape Familiar
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Flooded Strand
4 Adarkar Wastes
1 Polluted Delta
7 Island
1 Plains
Sideboard:
3 Brain Freeze
2 Turnabout
2 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Prismatic Strand
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Stifle
1 Mana Leak
1 Snap
The pending rotation of Extended means Mind's Desire decks will lose their current mana and draw engines. For those of you that are not familiar with how the above deck works, it combines the cost reducers Sunscape Familiar and Sapphire Medallion to with the Urza Block untap mechanic seen on such cards as Cloud of Fairies and Snap along with Turnabout to generate lots of Mana and Storm, and then follows with Mind's Desire. It eventually wins after casting enough spells to deck the opponent via Brain Freeze and either Deep Analysis, Stroke of Genius or a draw step. The draw engine of Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge is what ensures the deck draws its key combination pieces.
Unfortunately most of the key cards from Osyp's Mind's Desire deck are rotating out. What this means for Desire decks is that they will have to find new mana and draw engines to successfully abuse their marquee spell, Mind's Desire. Where could we find such degenerate cards like Intution and AK, or Turnabout. And how are we going to generate enough Storm and mana to pull off a big Mind's Desire? Well let's see, Kai Budde used a limited card pool to play this Mind's Desire deck in the Online Extended portion of the 2004 Magic Invitational:
3 Cunning Wish
4 Deep Analysis
3 Early Harvest
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Fertile Ground
2 Future Sight
2 Memory Lapse
4 Mind's Desire
1 Nostalgic Dreams
2 Rampant Growth
4 Twiddle
4 Wild Growth
3 Sunscape Familiar
13 Forest
8 Island
1 Plains
Sideboard:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Early Harvest
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Future Sight
1 Mana Short
4 Moment's Peace
3 Oxidize
2 Stifle
Kai's deck seeks a similar end as Osyp's deck but uses different means. It is still untapping lands to generate mana and using the best card drawing available to find its combo pieces, and of course the win condition has not changed. This version appears to be a bit slower since the card drawing is all costed at four Mana so with extremely lucky draws the deck will goldfish turn three at the very best, but more likely it will win turns four thru six on a regular basis. The good news is that this deck will be legal post rotation, so it's a reasonable starting point. And there's more good news. We have access to several new cards that Kai didn't have the benefit of playing with, but so do our opponents (read: Cranial Extraction) so we have to adjust the deck accordingly.
II. Card Choices
The first new card that deserves mention is Gifts Ungiven. In case you have been living under a rock for the past several months, Gifts Ungiven has proven itself as a dominant card in Vintage and Champions of Kamigawa Block Constructed. Believe me when I tell you, this card is as powerful (relatively speaking) in Extended as it is in Vintage and Block Constructed. Now you want to talk about a draw engine, this is a one card wrecking ball when used in conjunction with green recursion spells such as Eternal Witness, Nostalgic Dreams, and Revive (and let's not forget that good old Odyssey Block mechanic they call Flashback).
Gifts Ungiven can get you any card you need. Say you absolutely must have Mind's Desire. Go for Mind's Desire, Eternal Witness, Nostalgic Dreams, and X. If they give you Desire and any other card you got what you wanted. If they give you any two cards other than Mind's Desire you just get it back anyway. Most likely they will give you Eternal Witness and X so as to make you pay the most mana to get your precious Mind's Desire (and/or anything else that might be lying around in the graveyard) back. One card that you will frequently be getting is Nostalgic Dreams. Your opponent cannot give you this card if they expect to win. It is obviously the most powerful of your recursion spells and it warrants the proper respect from your opponent.
Gifts Ungiven also allows us to play singleton cards and know that we will have access to them. It also allows you to pull off some powerful bluffs against unwitting opponents. For instance, let's say you already have Mind's Desire in hand, but you really need the mana to abuse it. You can go for Mind's Desire, Early Harvest, Revive, and Rude Awakening. You can bet your opponent will not be giving you that Mind's Desire. Overall, Gifts Ungiven is probably the most powerful option that Mind's Desire decks have post rotation. It allows you to get exactly what you need for a reasonable price and the bluffing aspect of it can really work in your favor if done properly.
The last and possibly most important factor that makes Gifts Ungiven so powerful is that it breaks the rule of most combo decks by forcing player interaction. Combo decks usually don't want to interact they just want to kill the opponent as fast as possible, ignoring them all the while. This card gives the opponent a chance to make a mistake by giving you the cards you want. Since Magic is a game of imperfect information oftentimes your opponent will not know the contents of your hand and he or she will have to make an uninformed decision on which cards to give you. This card can provide an excellent tactical advantage when used correctly, and as I mentioned before, allows for some tricky bluffs.
Next up is Heartbeat of Spring a.k.a Mana Flare to all you old school mages. This card, much like Gifts Ungiven, made a splash at the ChK Block Constructed Pro Tour in Philadelphia. Many people wrote it off, for fear of giving opponents an advantage. Well some nice French gentlemen showed the rest of the world that this card is indeed quite powerful and it's worth the potential drawback for such a game breaking effect. Now granted, Champions of Kamigawa Block Constructed is a much slower format than Extended, but keep in mind that there are several more things you can do in Extended with a single Forest or Island untapped and Heartbeat of Spring in play. Here are some options:
- Cast Sakura-Tribe Elder to block oncoming creature with Cranial Plating attached to it.
- Cast Moment's Peace after your opponent casts Goblin Ringleader and a few friends and attacks you for 24.
- Counter...Target...Spell
- Early Frost targeting your opponents only three lands, so they can't access all the Mana you just gave them.
- You have Forest and Island open and you cast Early Harvest!
I'm sure there are plenty more, but these are some of the relevant situations you will be facing this Extended season (or on MODO right now if you like, - donate_illusions, beating Teddy Card Game to the punch). Yeah right, like Knut would ever put one of his witty comments into my article, but I can dream right? One of the reasons Heartbeat of Spring is so powerful is because you have built your deck to abuse it and your opponents have not. The best an opponent can usually do is cast an extra spell or two, while you on the other hand can just win the game outright.
Early Harvest is a key mana producer in this deck and it got reprinted (with Entwine!) as Rude Awakening. Now this card has some excellent uses. I personally like to use it to attack for 20 and laugh at my opponent who just extracted me for Cunning Wish, then Witnessed it back and took my main deck Brain Freeze. This is a necessary card for the deck seeing that Meddling Mage and Cranial Extraction can otherwise ruin your day. It's nice that it doubles as the fifth Early Harvest.
Sakura-Tribe Elder is clearly better than Rampant Growth since he can buy you some time against aggressive creature. He seems like an automatic inclusion into any Desire deck sporting Forests.
Well now that we have all our new toys to play with, let's figure out what the rest of the deck should look like. Clearly we will need to combine Mind's Desire, Cunning Wish, and Early Harvest with some recursion and card drawing elements. The best card drawing available at the moment appears to be Fact or Fiction and Deep Analysis so we will use those. The recursion cards that seem to work best are the aforementioned Eternal Witness, Nostalgic Dreams and Revive. So when you put it all together it would look like this:
U/G Mind's Desire v1.0
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Heartbeat of Spring
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Rampant Growth
4 Mind's Desire
4 Moment's Peace
3 Early Harvest
2 Nostalgic Dreams
2 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Rude Awakening
1 Revive
1 Eternal Witness
1 Deep Analysis
1 Brain Freeze
4 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
4 Island
13 Forest
Sideboard:
4 Early Frost
3 Oxidize
2 Deep Analysis
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Early Harvest
1 Brain Freeze
1 Echoing Truth
Here is a breakdown and analysis for the cards I didn't discuss at length earlier.
The Mana Engine:
Mana acceleration like Rampant Growth and Sakura-Tribe Elder are essential to keeping up with the fast pace of Extended while thinning out your deck and ensuring Heartbeat of Spring and Early Harvest are used to their fullest potential. More importantly they increase the odds of a turn three Gifts Ungiven or Fact or Fiction both of which can be devastating. Some of you may be wondering about the sac land situation. The Flooded Strands are in because you only want to have between one and two Islands at any give time, and they help promote drawing fewer Islands. This deck is very green intensive, with lots of double green spells that are key to generating enough Mana and Storm to win. The heavy green mana requirements are also the main reason for the exclusion of Sunscape Familiar who would dilute the decks mana. The one Windswept Heath is there because there are situations where you want to cast Gifts Ungiven for four lands and it allows you to do that with the added benefit of thinning out the deck. Why not just run all 8 then? Well, they can be somewhat painful against beatdown decks, and you also don't want to thin your library out too much, as you need at four to five lands to go off in most situations (sometimes less in a pinch).
Card Drawing:
Fact or Fiction is just one of the best card drawing spells ever printed, period. The recursion element in the deck makes it even more explosive as sometimes your opponent will make a favorable split since he doesn't know you have that Regrowth effect in hand. Just like Gifts Ungiven, this card forces player interaction that will oftentimes be beneficial to you. The old Mind's Desire or no split is not so safe against this deck, since you might just take four cards and pitch them to Nostalgic Dreams getting back Mind's Desire plus three friends. I really wish I could fit more Fact or Fictions into the maindeck, but I think Gifts Ungiven is strictly better for our purposes. Gifts Ungiven is just insane (did I mention that yet?), as evidenced by its recent rampages in both Vintage and Block Constructed. The single Deep Analysis is there for those games in which you need to win on your turn. Examples are when your opponent can burn you out during his or her upkeep with Siege-gang Commander, or with Grim Lavamancer and Magma Jet, et al. Don't forget you can go get it with Gifts Ungiven against Rock or Permission decks, neither of which cares to see Deep Analysis.
Recursion:
Nostalgic Dreams is the best of these spells but you rarely want to draw it in multiples, so two seems to be the right number (I would find out I'm wrong after extensive testing, more on this later). The single Eternal Witness and Revive are there for when you cast Gifts Ungiven as I outlined earlier. When you have Heartbeat of Spring on the table, you can chain all the recursion spells together to generate a higher Storm count.
The Rest:
Mind's Desire has cool art and none of that boring flavor text; let's play four of them. Cunning Wish gets the win condition and singletons from the sideboard. The single Brain Freeze is there mainly because a Meddling Mage on Cunning Wish would mean Rude Awakening is your only out. Also, if someone extracted your Cunning Wishes you could still win via Brain Freeze. Moment's Peace is a card some people like to keep in the sideboard. I play a lot of Online Extended and believe you me, there are a sea of aggro decks out there that hate to see this card. Come October, I think it's safe to assume aggro decks will still be popular contenders. Now if you disagree and sense the metagame will be rife with control decks, than please feel free to move these to the sideboard in favor of whatever you deem necessary.
The Sideboard:
Echoing Truth is mainly there for Meddling Mage, and other random troublesome permanents like Platinum Angel. It is always nice to have answers since Extended is a wide open format and you never know what bothersome permanent you will be up against. Oxidize comes in against Affinity and Scepter Chant. Deep Analysis and Early Frost are there for control matchups. Eternal Witness serves double duty against aggressive decks that run Cabal Therapy, getting back a relevant spell and chump blocking something. Fact or Fiction, Brain Freeze and Early Harvest are targets for Cunning Wish and rarely get sided in.
III. Tournament Report
Well that about does it for the card choices. And now, the moment you have all been waiting for...the Tournament report. Did I scrub out or win it all with this crazy concoction of combolicsiousness? Read on and find out.
Sidenote: This article was written before the banning of Aether Vial and Disciple of the Vault. Since this tournament I have only been able to play in one other Premiere Event, the 4x Prize Extended which I Top 8'ed through a field of 160 players (also pre bannings). The interesting thing about that tournament was that I played against a different deck in each of the nine rounds before I was eliminated. Just goes to show how diverse the Online Extended metagame is.
Magic the Gathering Online Extended Tournament #541378, Sunday May 29th, 2005.
43 players, 6 rounds, cut to Top 8.
Round 1 vs. _macgyver with Affinity
Game one he doesn't have any early action and just Thoughtcasts a few times to set up a big turn. Unfortunately for him I have been going about setting up a bigger turn, and I drop Heartbeat of Spring. Now Affinity can't really take advantage of the extra mana the way a lot of other decks can since most of its spells are reduced in cost and they dump their hand pretty early on anyway. I will usually drop Heartbeat of Spring turn 3 against them if given the chance and this time was no different. He plays out his whole hand but I get to untap and it's over soon after as I Gifts Ungiven...for the win.
Game 2 he plays a turn 1 Vault of Whispers and passes. Now, I have Oxidize in my opening hand so clearly the play is to take out that noxious land which facilitates Disciple of the Vault and the dreaded Cabal Therapy. So naturally I play Forest and say go, instead. As I click OK on his upkeep step I realize the terrible mistake and start kicking myself. He plays out Arcbound Ravager so I Oxidize that instead of the Vault of Whispers. Well that's two strikes. I think I should have taken out Vault of Whispers there and just let Arcbound Ravager do his thing because I would have had time to set up my combo as long as he didn't play a second black source and Disciple or Cabal Therapy. On his next turn he plays Disciple of the Vault and Ravager number two. I am quite flustered at this point and I am trying to figure out how I can make it out of this game alive. I play Heartbeat of Spring and pass. He untaps and plays Disciple of the Vault number two along with Cranial Plating, then equips and swings. I untap with four lands and two Gifts Ungiven in hand. I figure I can go for Moment's Peace, Fact or Fiction, Early Harvest and Mind's Desire, and then use the other one to get Revive, Nostalgic Dreams, Early Harvest and Eternal Witness and win on that turn. He swings in and I play Gifts Ungiven. He doesn't give me Moment's Peace so I flash it back only to have him Mana Leak it and sac everything to Arcbound Ravager taking me to exactly zero life.
Game three is a fairly one sided affair as I can't really draw anything of substance to hold him off and don't go off in time. This loss got me down since I felt that I could have won if I played correctly game two, and now I have to run the table to make top 8.
0-1, 1-2
Round 2 vs. SleepyX with Red Burn deck
He kicks things off with Raging Goblin and I'm not sure exactly what to expect. I play land and pass it back. He drops Raging Goblin number two then attacks me for twelve putting me to a precariously low seven life. Huh? What? Twelve? Riiiiiight...See I forgot to mention that he removed Myojin of Infinite Rage to Blazing Shoal targeting Raging Goblin! Well I didn't really have much to answer back with and he dispatched me on turn 3. I am so demoralized at this point that I am ready to just drop from the tournament and call it a night. After relating my tale of misfortune to my good friend Jprophet he tells me that I need to get it together and just take it one game at a time. Play tight and win out. The words of encouragement helped me to remember that I had not done all this playtesting and preparation for nothing. I needed to get it together and give it everything I had. With my back firmly against the wall, one game loss away from the dreaded 0-2 drop, the tide began to turn.
Game two he doesn't have the Blazing Shoal but he has Raging Goblin again and he follows it up with double Spark Elemental! Go ahead, and click the link, I'll wait. This time, however, I'm ready with Moment's Peace and his mulligan to six has now become a triple mulligan thanks to my trusty fog effect. He is out of gas and I mop up with Heartbeat of Spring followed by Early Harvest et. al. Game three is close as he burns me to four and I start to go off hoping that the last two cards in his hand are lands. He doesn't respond until I cast Brain Freeze to mill his entire library. A Sonic Seizure to my face means he was one damage short of killing me. A close one to be sure... I'm glad to have made it out of round two alive.
1-1, 3-3
Round 3 vs. Bogatz with Rift/Slide a la Terry Soh
I must say I was relieved when he dropped Astral Slide. This matchup is virtually impossible for the Slide deck to win without Gilded Light, and Terry Soh's 2005 Invitational version doesn't run it. I comboed him out both games unopposed. I'm starting to feel a gain in momentum and my outlook for the rest of the tournament is a positive one.
2-1, 5-3
Round 4 vs. furyshade with R/g Beats
I luck out here as R/g Beats is one of this deck's best matchups. Between the maindeck Moment's Peace, and R/g's lack of disruption they will be hard pressed to beat you. Game one goes according to plan with me dropping an early Heartbeat of Spring and him not being able to kill me before I get to untap. Game two goes his way as I can't find a blue source by turn seven and I'm fresh out of Fogs. Game three is a repeat of game one and I'm back in contention for top 8.
3-1, 7-4
Round 5 duotianshi626 with Affinity
Unfortunately, because of circumstances beyond my control, I don't have access to the replays of my games so I have to go by memory, and I do not remember much of this match. I know that he won a game with a clever play that resulted in exactly enough damage to kill me the turn before I would go off thanks to a Shrapnel Blast with Disciple of the Vault in play...after he sacked everything to his Arcbound Ravager of course. It didn't matter though, since I pulled the other two games out, and was all ready to draw into the Top 8 when...
4-1, 9-5
Round 6 vs Mr.T_6 with Red Deck Wins
My tiebreakers are the worst, seeing that I lost first round and all. There is a chance I would make it in with a draw if the lone player with 12 points who got paired down lost. I liked my chances better playing it out. I had just won four straight after all. Game one I play an early Heartbeat of Spring and he can't deal enough for the win so I go off the next turn. Game two he goes turn 1 Slith Firewalker, turn 2 Zo-zu the Punisher. Hrmmmm. Tack on some land destruction and it's on to game three.
So it all comes down to this. I didn't fight my way out of the cellar to lose now! This game turned out to be a real nail biter. I start of with a Rampant Growth for Island. He kills it. I Revive Rampant Growth and fetch another Island...He kills it. With Gifts Ungiven and Cunning Wish in hand I really need some blue Mana, but alas I draw more green instead. At least he doesn't have any pressure on me. Well, that is of course until he plays Seething Song and drops Arc Slogger and Slith Firewalker. I topdeck Eternal Witness which gets back my Island, and I pla....wait a second...fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Okay, so I have already been shamed, but I refuse to be shamed again!
If I play the Island, I can Cunning Wish for Early Harvest and win next turn if he doesn't kill my lonely Island (barring me peeling a blue source, which, by the way, would never, ever, happen). On the other hand if I wait until next turn to play the Island I can Gifts Ungiven meaning that even if he has the LD spell I can still win. I say go, trusty Island safe in my hand. He makes what I believe to be a mistake by not killing my Eternal Witness with Arc Slogger and instead attacks letting me block it. I was at a pretty safe life total (high teens), but if he gets in for six there and I drop Heartbeat of Spring he may have been able to kill me with Arc-Slogger. He may have been thinking that an Arc-Slogger activation means three or four less spells I have to cast before Brain Freeze, but still. On my next turn I play the Island and pass it back. He does indeed have the Stone Rain and I cast Gifts Ungiven in response getting Island, Heartbeat of Spring, Nostalgic Dreams, Eternal Witness. He clearly can't give me the Nostalgic Dreams, and he doesn't want me having access to Blue Mana unless I pay an extra three Mana to get it so he gives me Heartbeat of Spring and Eternal Witness. In my hand I already have Cunning Wish, Early Harvest and Mind's Desire. I go off with ease on my turn and breathe a huge sigh of relief as I am in first place heading into the Top 8.
5-1, 11-6
Top 8
donate_illusions, Mind's Desire
kotobuki, Affinity
ManaBirD1, Scepter Tog (Nassif's Invitational deck)
_macgyver, Affinity
manu chao, R/g Beats
Saint77, R/g Beats
KhantheWarlord, Scepter Tog (Nassif's Invitational deck)
TotallySpies, Affinity
Just making it into the Top 8 after being one game away from elimination is a great feeling. But this is not the time to relax. I wanted to finish strong and win the whole thing!
Round 7 vs TotallySpies with Affinity
Game one mulligan into 2 Flooded Strand, Forest, Mind's Desire, Early Harvest, Rampant Growth and decide to run it. Not the best hand against Affinity but it is certainly better than any five-card hand I could hope for.
Aside: One of the best resources available in Online Premiere Events is the replay feature. It allows you to scout the entire field in between rounds time permitting. This can help tremendously when it comes to deciding whether or not to mulligan, since certain hands are better or worse against certain decks. End aside.
Back to the action. He leads with turn 2 Frogmite and I respond with Sakura-Tribe Elder I have drawn. The next turn sees him drop Disciple of the Vault, Cranial Plating and another Frogmite. I draw Fact or Fiction and brace for impact. He drops the rest of his hand and swings to put me to 6. Fact or Fiction reveals four lands and Early Harvest. Now normally this is not the best, but I drew a Nostalgic Dreams earlier and now I could really benefit from a lopsided split. He correctly places an Island with Early Harvest and I am forced to take the three Forest pile, since I actually need more Green Mana. My draw step yields Heartbeat of Spring which is the best possible card for me to draw in that instance (how lucky!) and I go nuts and Desire for 10, then finish him off.
He kicks off game two with Great Furnace, Ornithopter and Chromatic Sphere. I play Forest and pass it back. He busts the Chromatic Sphere for Black and plays the dreaded Cabal Therapy. Luckily my hand is not great and he whiffs on Cunning Wish. Then he flashes it back and I decide to try and slow him down a bit by running Oxidize on his only land. He takes the Early Harvest he just saw and plays Darksteel Citadel and Ornithopter, mocking my poor play. Unfortunately the shuffler Gods decided that my opponent had done something to deserve a harsh punishment and they denied him of any land for the rest of the game. He was quite a good sport about his misfortune, a rarity seldom seen on MODO. Needless to say I pulled it out, but I hate to win like that.
6-1, 13-6
Round 8 vs. Saint77 with R/g Beats
I win the die roll and mulligan into these six beauties on the play: Gifts Ungiven, Heartbeat of Spring, Early Harvest, Moment's Peace, Forest, Flooded Strand. If I draw a land in my either of my first two draw steps, this game should be over. My first draw is Sakura-Tribe Elder and that gives me the sufficient Mana to cast Heartbeat of Spring turn 3. Meanwhile he has played turn 1 Birds of Paradise followed by turn 2 Wild Mongrel. His next turn had pretty much better kill me or I should win with Gifts Ungiven, Moment's Peace. He drops Phantom Centaur and Elephant Guide on the Wild Mongrel and knocks me down to 14. I play a land and say go holding Moment's Peace, Early Harvest and 2 Gifts Ungiven. He pretty much can't win the game from this position unless I misclick. I don't, and it's on to game two.
After I mulligan to five he leads off with two Birds of Paradise and a Magma Jet over his first two turns. This gives me some hope since I have a turn 3 Heartbeat of Spring, but he would quickly put an end to my chances of winning. He puts me to six the next turn and the best I can do is Fact or Fiction mainphase hoping to somehow get Early Harvest and Mind's Desire. Shockingly that didn't happen and I scoop 'em up.
Game three he plays turn 1 Birds of Paradise, turn 2 Wild Mongrel, Grim Lavamancer. I have a turn 3 Gifts Ungiven (with Revive and Eternal Witness in hand) thanks to Rampant Growth. I grab Moment's Peace, Mind's Desire, Early Harvest and Heartbeat of Spring and he gives me, oh who the heck cares I'm getting it all back anyway. If you really must know, he gave me Moment's Peace and Heartbeat of Spring. I drop the Heartbeat of Spring and Revive Early Harvest leaving a Forest open for Moment's Peace. He brings the pain literally, since when I try to Fog his attack he plays Flaring Pain! Luckily for me I was at a healthy ten life when all was said and done and going off on my turn was no problem. On to the finals!
7-1, 15-7
Round 9 vs. kotbuki with Affinity
I win the roll and go to six. He is happy with his seven and drops Disciple of the Vault and Ornithopter turn 1. He lays more Artifacts and beats me down a bit. I drop Heartbeat of Spring with Moment's Peace backup and Gifts Ungiven in hand. This game is over unless he has Cabal Therapy and he does not. For some reason I get The Fear™ and I go off on my turn instead of giving him one more draw step to find Cabal Therapy. It is very late at this point and I chalk my shoddy play in this match up to fatigue (it was 5 A.M. by the time this match got underway). I Gifts Ungiven for Mind's Desire, Early Harvest, Eternal Witness and Nostalgic Dreams mainphase and get the Storm spell and walking Regrowth, then cast an Early Harvest, get it back, recast it and Desire for a lousy six with six Mana available and no cards in hand. I clearly should have Gifts Ungiven on his endstep after flashing back Moment's Peace, but like I said, The Fear™ got the best of me. Despite my foolish play my deck decided to bail me out as I flipped Island, Forest, Forest, Nostalgic Dreams, Moment's Peace and...wait for it... Mind's Desire number two! I believe the saying is "Better lucky than good."
Game two we are both mana flooded and he has managed only a Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Worker and two Ornithopters. I have seven lands. He finally pulls out of it with Thoughtcast into Cranial Plating and Frogmite. He swings for my life total and I cast Moment's Peace. I debate attempting to go off, but decide that The Fear™ will not get me twice in one match so I pass it back to him and Flashback Moment's Peace. He does not have the Cabal Therapy and the coast is clear for me to go off next turn. My hand is two Early Harvest, Mind's Desire, Eternal Witness and Cunning Wish. Since I have seven lands in play I can float a bunch of Mana with my Early Harvest's then cast a Mind's Desire for three and still have enough Mana to get it back with Eternal Witness and recast it. This is no sure thing, but it's the best plan there is short of the correct play a.k.a adding two additional spells to the stack with Cunning Wish for Early Harvest (which I should have done, but like I said, fatigue). I hit Forest, Sakura-Tribe Elder and a Fact or Fiction that reveals two Rampant Growth, Moment's Peace, Forest and Revive. I take the Revive pile and get back Early Harvest to untap. He concedes when I return Mind's Desire to my hand with the Eternal Witness. I would like to point out that although chances were good I would win with my next Mind's Desire which would have been for twelve, one should never concede until you see the goods. I have fizzled with large Mind's Desires before, and even though it's rare, it happens. In this case I had 32 cards left in my library and needed to hit one of six cards for the win.
8-1, 17-7
IV. Tweaking the Deck
Needless to say, after reeling off eight straight victories to win the tournament I felt pretty good about the deck's viability. Upon further consideration I realize that I got good pairings and didn't face a whole lot of disruption. Dodging those two Psychatog decks that were in the Top 8 didn't hurt either. Beating three Affinity decks and losing to a fourth due to a play error gives me a lot of hope for this deck, since if you can't beat Affinity you may want to reconsider your deck choice. For a beatdown environment, which is clearly what this tournament featured, this deck is an excellent choice.
As far as changes to the deck go I would say that it could definitely be tuned a little more. The metagame has shifted quite a bit since I wrote this tournament report. There has been a rise in popularity of Mind's Desire and U/G Storm (Desireless) decks along with the addition of a completely new U/W weenie deck that sports eight pro Red creatures, Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle and 8 Counterspells along with other assorted goodies. U/G Madness with Umezawa's Jitte has also been on the rise, and so has Red Deck Wins. The Nassif Invitational Psychatog deck has been making waves as well. Goblins, Affinity, Rock and Tooth and Nail have not gone anywhere, and still make up a large part of the format. Most of the changes to my deck reflect the changes in the metagame and minor adjustments that needed to be made. Here is the updated decklist:
The first notable change is the reduction of the deck's namesake spell to a single copy. The reason for this is that you really only need one since you can go get it with Gifts Ungiven, along with the fact you can often recur it if need be after the first go round. In fact sometimes you can win without casting Mind's Desire at all, much like the UG storm decks you see running around out there. However I think the inclusion of this card is definitely necessary as it has such a game breaking effect. I added a Fact of Fiction, Cunning Wish and Nostalgic Dreams in place of the three Mind's Desires, all of which proved to be much stronger than I initially perceived them to be. One Moment's Peace moved to the sideboard and two land were added. The sac lands were changed because you can actually trick people into thinking you are playing a different deck. When you lead with Polluted Delta, and turn 2 Island people might make you for Psycatog and play more slowly allowing you to decimate them for not going for the quick kill.
The sideboard also received a makeover gaining access to many more wish targets and Counterspells. Seedtime is just insane now because there are a lot of decks casting blue instants on your end step. If you have five land in play, Cunning Wish in hand, and your opponent goes Fact or Fiction, they won't be living to tell about it. Rude Awakening is now in its rightful place and can come in against decks that bring in Cranial Extraction or as an alternate way of getting around those pesky Meddling Mages. Mana Short is better than Early Frost could have ever hoped to be and can help make sure an opponent is completely helpless when you want to go for the win. Opportunity is an interesting card, it essentially allows you to end the game at instant speed while Deep Analysis does not, and sometimes drawing four cards is not a bad thing either. I'm still not totally sold on this card but I am trying it out since several other players swear by it. Three Counterspells and one Memory Lapse may look odd, but there is a method to the madness. Imagine you have five lands in play and Cunning Wish in hand. Your opponent casts a spell that you absolutely don't want to see resolve (this turn at least). Chances are you don't have more than two Island because of the decks heavy green mana requirement. In this scenario you can wish for Memory Lapse and hopefully go off next turn. These situations come up somewhat infrequently so I would not be against dropping Memory Lapse if I found something better.
V. Matchup Analysis
Well now that we have covered the updated card choices and seen the deck in action, its time to move onto the matchup analysis. The decks that are currently the most popular in Magic Online Extended Premiere Events are (in no particular order): Affinity, Goblins, Red Deck Wins, R/g beats, U/g Madness, Rock, Tooth and Nail, and Psychatog. Balancing Tings has been on the rise of late, and Scepter Chant is quite powerful, but most players can't afford a deck with both Orim's Chant and Meddling Mage (for those of you who don't play Magic Online, cards from Invasion Block are ridiculously expensive). Other less popular, but, interesting deck's that have posted top 8 finishes are Mono Black beats, DragonStorm, Cephalid Breakfast, and Tendrils of Agony! That last deck made four Top 8's then was never heard from again. Interesting. I apologize in advance to any players who have Top 8'd with decks I did not mention here, please let me know in the forums. I will just cover the decks I have observed most frequently.
Affinity
Even with the loss of Disciple of the Vault and Aether Vial Affinity is still strong. Don't kid yourself, this deck isn't going anywhere. Game one of this matchup will depend largely on whether or not the Affinity deck is packing Cabal Therapy, and their ability to draw said evil card thatisthebaneofallcomboplayersexistencesandisthereasonWOTCneedstoreprintBrainstorm. This card can surely make things difficult for you, but as long as you draw Moment's Peace to buy yourself some time you can still pull out a game in which Cabal Therapy hits. Now luckily for us, some Affinity decks have relegated Cabal Therapy to the Sideboard or forgone it altogether. If the Affinity player is not able to draw his Cabal Therapy or is not maindecking it this matchup turns quite favorable. Between Sakura-Tribe Elder chump blocking and Moment's Peace you have plenty of time to set up the combo. Heartbeat of Spring is great here because Affinity really has no way to abuse it, seeing as most of their lands are Ancient Tomb to begin with the extra mana rarely helps them that much. Feel free to drop it turn three in most scenarios. There is not a whole lot you can bring in against Affinity so just run the deck as is games two and three
If they didn't have Cabal Therapy game one you had better believe they will have it and/or Duress game two. The main idea is to try and use your resources to slow them down until you can safely go off. Overall I would say this matchup is a favorable one but by a very slim margin. We all know what Affinity is capable of by now and underestimating it can spell your doom.
Goblins
Once again we have the Cabal Therapy or no matchup. If they don't have it, game one is a walk in the park, if they do you gotta buy enough time to recover and go off. Your key cards against Goblins are Moment's Peace, Sakura-Tribe Elder and Eternal Witness. Now unlike Affinity they can take advantage of Heartbeat of Spring (like you wouldn't believe) so I would wait until you have Moment's Peace backup to drop it, unless you can just go off. Sideboarding is an unknown at this point since you really don't have much to bring in. However the addition of Carven Caryatid from Ravnica may be necessary to help stop the Goblin onslaught.
Games two and three be afraid. Be very afraid. Most Goblin decks are bringing in Flaring Pain, which negates Moment's Peace and some even run Final Fortune to make sure they kill you before you kill them. If they don't have either of those then you may be facing down a turn 2 Pyrostatic Pillar, in which case you had better get very lucky. That being said, a lot has to go right for them to win. They need Goblin Piledriver and Flaring Pain, and usually Goblin Warchief. Again, Carven Caryatid could potentially be great against Goblins since it kills any man it blocks and draws you a card.
Red Deck Wins
Their biggest weapon against you is land destruction. Most of the time the best play is to just try to accelerate your way out of the LD, or just drop Heartbeat of Spring as soon as possible. The worst they can do if you drop Heartbeat of Spring early on is blow up two lands (and I was once attacked by two Blistering Firecats). This is a favorable matchup since they are generally not fast enough to keep up with you and their disruption is only effective in certain situations. You can bring in Counterspells here, but you don't have to, it's up to you.
The Rock
As always you can never really count The Rock out so I will say this matchup is 50/50. Even though they have a truckload of disruption, they often have trouble sealing the deal since they don't have fast pressure to take you out while you are down. This means a topdecked Gifts Ungiven or Fact or Fiction will often put you squarely back into a game in which you lost your hand to Duress and Cabal Therapy. Cranial Extraction is mildly annoying. Most players I have come up against go for Mind's Desire or Cunning Wish. As I mentioned earlier, even if they get both of those you can still win via Brain Freeze or Rude Awakening. It can actually be an advantage to get Extracted because your opponent may become overconfident and think you cannot get back in the game. This might cause them to play on auto pilot and may mean a mistake or two on which you can capitalize. Moment's Peace is actually decent in this matchup since it will buy you the extra turn or two to topdeck that Gifts Ungiven. That being said, it's coming out games two and three.
In: 1 Rude Awakening, 1 Deep Analysis
Out: 2 Moment's Peace
Psychatog (Nassif Invitational version)
I'm not gonna lie to you folks, this one's a doozy. Don't give up though you just have to be very patient and play extremely tight to win. The easiest way to win is to catch them trying to do something at the end of your turn with Cunning Wish for Seedtime, untap and win. However it will rarely be that easy against a smart opponent. If you get into the long game, which is much more common, you need to out land them. That means land drops, Sakura-Tribe Elders and Rampant Growths are gold. The reason for this is you want to create a situation where you can generate huge amounts of card advantage at the end of your turn with Fact of Fiction, Gifts Ungiven and Cunning Wish, which if they choose to counter will leave them vulnerable for the real spell you want to resolve...Heartbeat of Spring. If you can get that badboy on the table or run them out of counters/tap them out and cast Early Harvest you are going to win. Of course all of this is easier said than done but don't think that this matchup is unwinnable because as soon as you think that you are correct.
In: 3 Counterspell, 1 Deep Analysis, 1 Rude Awakening
Out: 3 Moment's Peace, 1 Heartbeat of Spring, 1 Rampant Growth
Games two and three are definitely much easier, but don't get to cocky they still have a slight advantage. Just try and execute the same plan as game one.
Tooth and Nail
This matchup is a race. They have acceleration just like you do, but they also have land destruction. They can abuse Heartbeat if you give them the chance, so don't. The plan here is to get to five lands with Heartbeat of Spring and Early Harvest in hand. Beware of Mindslaver, if it's activated, you are very likely to lose. Game one is usually a race to see who can pull their combo off first. A race you should win as long as there is not too much Reaping and Sowing. Even if they get Tooth and Nail off they don't necessarily win. Chances are they will go for Sundering Titan, Kiki-Jiki, so you will be in a world of hurt. If they get Leonin Abunas and Platinum Angel you just go off and mill their library, then wish for Echoing Truth to bounce Leonin Abunas, get it back with Eternal Witness or Nostalgic Dreams and then send Platinum Angel home for the win.
In: 3 Counterspell, 1 Deep Analysis
Out: 3 Moment's Peace, 1 Brain Freeze
Hopefully some well-timed Counterspells will keep them off their Tron or stop a Tooth and Nail. From there you should be able to go off without incident. Things are definitely more favorable games two and three.
In a half hearted attempt to cover the countless other matchups you will come across in Extended I am grouping some less popular decks and outlining general strategies you can use against them.
Other assorted aggro (U/g Madness, R/g Beats, UW Fish)
Against U/g try to resolve Heartbeat of Spring as soon as you can since it invalidates Circular Logic to some degree. R/g doesn't really have any disruption so just go off before they do twenty. U/W Fish is starting to see some play and it looks to be a tough matchup since they have permission to go with their beaters one of whom is the dreaded Meddling Mage. Beware Hokori after sideboard.
Combo (Mirror, Cephalid Breakfast, DragonStorm, KCI, Tendrils, Balancing Tings)
You are at a disadvantage against other combo decks game one since you are not as fast and have no disruption game one, while they may have some. You have to hope to win the die roll and get good hands. If you are unfortunate enough to face combo then bring in your Counterspells and Early Harvest for Moment's Peace and one Polluted Delta. After sideboarding you have to pretty much drop Heartbeat of Spring and follow it up with Early Harvest.
Heartbeat of Spring, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Eternal Witness and Gifts Ungiven are significant additions that put this deck on the same power level as some of the other heavy hitters in the format. Giving your opponents the opportunity to misplay a Gifts Ungiven or Fact or Fiction, blocking with Sakura-Tribe Elder or Eternal Witness, and nullifying combat with Moment's Peace are all non-traditional elements in terms of combo. But those interactive elements are in fact what make this deck great. In closing, Mind's Desire is a powerful, yet flexible and resilient deck that excels against beatdown without scooping to control, thus making it a strong choice for the current Online Extended format and upcoming Extended Grand Prix and PTQ season (maybe even the Pro Tour).
Until next time,
Luke Chirayath
donate_illusions on MODO
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