Article Archive

It's been a while since I posted something -- that's unfortunate I've done multiple sealed deck PTQ's and prereleases since the last post and I'd love to have those decks catalogued, but that will have to wait.

Recently there have been a number of good game play articles written. In my opinion, game play and strategic card selection (kind of a broad topic but I mean mostly the last eight cards in to a constructed deck, picks 8 through fifteen in a draft, and proper sideboarding choices in both constructed and limited) are the most important aspects of the game. These are the topics I want to focus my efforts on (in addition to trying to make some sense of Time Spiral block limited which continues to confound me), so I have found all of these articles to be particularly inspiring. I will list them here and try to add to the list as I become aware of additional worthy inclusions:

Basics
You Filthy Liar by Peter V
A basic discussion of bluffing magic with simple examples

Introduction to Mana Base by Jeff Cunningham **
Magic Academy article on choosing lands for a deck

My System - A Guide to Tempo by Scott Johns
Good article on the basics of what tempo is and is not

Who's the Beatdown? by Mike Flores
An article on constructed gameplay but it carries over to all formats and covers something that should just be part of your general approach to the game

Investment by Mike Flores
Similar to "Who's the Beatdown", this article covers an aspect of fundamental gameplay -- instead what roles the two players take, this time it is what roles do your cards take

Systemic Thought by Zvi Mowshowitz
The last article of Zvi's The Play's the Thing column, which was sadly plagued by poor editing to the point of near illegibility (in my opinion). I obviously found the column's aim admirable though it's execution was pretty painful. This final article came out rather well though and outlines some of the most important aspects of game play, namely identification of the means to victory and forming a plan to utilize those means

Seven Coins by Noah Weil
An outline of many of the fundamental aspects of being a great player

The Expert Mind by Philip E. Ross
Non-Magic article cited in Seven Coins above

Specifics
Master versus Master by Mike Flores
Examples of some of the more memorable plays in pro tour history

Attacking for Two by Sean McKeown
Article trying to predict game play in Time Spiral limited from a partial spoiler. Not easy to follow but has some interesting evaluations of morph and echo and their interactions

The Beautiful Struggle: On Discipline by Mark Young
An article emphasizing the most important point of good Magic: the match outcome should bear no relevance when evaluating your play

The Lessons of Time Spiral Sealed by Darwin Goh
Match play lessons in the form of a tournament report (or is it the other way around?). Lots of interesting little insights

Snarely Legal by Noah Weil
More discussion of when and when not bluff....

** All of the Magic Academy articles are good in my opinion though a good chunk of them deal with too simple of concepts to make the list here as being worthwhile reading.

In the interest of making my own contributions, here is my most recent draft deck (my first and only eight man TSP-TSP-PLC draft so far):

White Rebels:
Amrou Scout
Defiant Vanguard
Aven Riftwatcher
Saltfield Recluse

White Slivers:
Quilled Sliver
2 Sinew Sliver
2 Watcher Sliver

White Other Creature:
Duskrider Peregrine

Black Rebel:
Blightspeaker

Black Slivers:
2 Basal Sliver

Black Other Creatures:
Brain Gorgers
Bog Serpent
Liege of the Pit

Multicolor Creature:
Oros, the Avenger

Artifact and Spells:
Feebleness
Melancholy
Temporal Isolation
Serra's Boon
Gauntlet of Power

Lands:
8 Plains
8 Swamp
2 Mountain

Relevant Sideboard Cards:
Jedit's Dragoons
Saltfield Recluse
Vampiric Link
Psychotic Episode
3 Tresspasser il-Vec
2 Skulking Knight
Call to the Netherworld
Psionic Sliver
2 Synchronous Sliver

Cards from Tresspasser il-Vec and up saw play out of the sideboard. I picked up the Synchronous Slivers late because I had team-drafted with TSP-TSP-PLC before and knew that Telekinetic plus Synchronous Sliver can be a devastating combo especially against other sliver decks if they get the tempo advantage of tapping your slivers down first. I might have entertained the idea of a blue splash if I hadn't received the gift of a second pick dragon in the third pack that happened to be in my colors.

Briefly, here is how the draft went. I opened a pack with Errant Ephemeron and Liege of the Pit. I took the liege because 1. it's a rare, 2. it's really big, and 3. I am always scared of blue being overdrafted (and usually it turns out not to be). My experience with Time Spiral has been that bombs win games and win drafts. My current strategy is take the bombs while they're still in the packs and then try to draft for synergy with those bombs. I probably overvalued the liege because it is a rare and thus seems more splashy than the ephemeron. I do not remember the exact flow of the rest of the draft (which is bad; one thing I need to work on is evaluating a pack and gauging the flow of colors upstream by seeing what tables) but basically I ended up in black/white because I value Temporal Isolation and Watcher Sliver more highly than most people. I believe I also picked up Defiant Vanguard rather early and thus was tempted toward the rebel plan as I'd never tried it before and he seemed like a greater incentive to try than the usual scout, plus I was already in black. As far as I can recall it was all automatic from there. I toyed with madness because Trespasser il-Vec was undervalued by other drafters but at some point I took something over a Dark Withering and didn't see many madness cards after that.

My evaluation of this deck is that it is fairly mediocre and schizophrenic but has some synergies which make it a ton of fun to play. Here are the ways the deck can win: fast sliver draw (sinew into basal into watcher), stall into bomb dragon (either the liege or the actual dragon, sometimes just the duskrider is enough), or creature rush with rebel advantage (trade trade trade and then pull out rebels). Having little experience with eight man drafts in TTP perhaps I missed some signs indicating what I should draft -- half the table was composed of inexperienced players so perhaps the draft was actually unreadable. From my games I know that someone else tried to go U/B madness, R/W aggro (taking rebels), and B/G big guys (nicking a Plauge Sliver and a Rathi Trapper I would have really liked). In retrospect, I think I was right to keep my options open -- I never got the big payoff of trappers, pulmonic sliver, or good madness guys but I was looking out for all three and chances are that one of those three archetypes should be open in a given draft. Perhaps I should have read things differently though.

In regards to the build, I was a little pressed for space with the three themes colliding. A more correct build would probably include the second recluse as rebels are the only source of card advantage for the deck. For slower match-ups I boarded in the dragoons which likely should have been maindeck and against decks where I felt outclassed I pulled in the trespassers and vampiric link as well which gave me an extra way to neutralize a bomb card and more ways to punch through in the mean time. I won at least a couple games just due to fast trespassers. Perhaps the sliver theme should not be so prominent maindeck though fast slivers also won some games.

How did I do? It was actually pretty amusing. I went 3-2 in matches and 7-7 in games...and got 2nd place. The format was three rounds of swiss with a cut to the top 4 (yeah). Here are the relevant points from each match:

Round 1 versus Rich
He had a deck featuring various amounts of red, green and black cards. The above mentioned Rathi Trapper and Plague Sliver made appearances. I don't remember the specifics of the match but I probably won one of the games due to mana problems on his part as his mana-base seemed fairly shaky. I lost one game in which I made a couple critical mistakes: I walked right into a Rough (the uncommon split card), I played out a Basal Sliver into a stalled board when he had Plague Sliver in play (which was likely one of my best chances to win), and I played Temporal Isolation on his Plague Sliver (I thought its upkeep effect was loss of life rather than damage). The third game was close and of course featured another horrific misplay. Early in the game I attacked with Blightspeaker and lost it to a flashed Drudge Reavers. The game ended up going long and being decided by a few points -- losing the blightspeaker almost certainly cost me the game as it represented at least a handful of life points (which might have been enough, especially if I had searched out the riftwatcher) plus card advantage (he ultimately won with empty the warrens for eight; pulling out rebels to put additional pressure on him might have forced him to use the storm spell earlier as a defensive measure). I drew Oros the turn after he cast Empty the Warrens and was not happy about it. One play I thought was interesting was that he suspened Mindstab late in the game. In retrospect he might have done that solely for the storm count but at the time I remember thinking it was brilliant as I had one or two cards in hand and the board was stalled. Over the next three turns I had to choose between stocking up cards to be forced to chuck three away to keep a trick or two in hand or play my hand out and be left empty when the Mindstab resolved. Late game I would probably always just view Minstab as a hardcast so this reevaluation of the card was interesting to me. What I take away from this match is that I need to come up with practices to avoid autopilot -- I attacked with the blightspeaker after looking at my hand, seeing the creature I wanted to play for the turn, looking at the board and seeing I had the only creature in play and going "oh, I have the only creature so I should attack first and then play my other creature after combat". Attacking with Blightspeaker was just an abominable mistake and the sliver slip-ups were also cases of not thinking enough about the consequences of my plays.
Lost match in three games

Round 2 versus T(?)
This player wasn't very good. We each lost one game to mana screw. I outplayed him the other game with big slivers and rebel tricks. The only thing I remember about this match is that he put dust corona on one of his 2/2's and attacked. I put something in front of it and he cast brute strength. He obviously had a trick, but in retrospect I don't know if my was incorrect any way. I traded something else for his creature and was glad he had no tricks left. Whether to trade a creature for a trick against a bad player or let them keep it is something I have not worked out the specifics of yet.
Won match in three games

Round 3 versus Will
Lesson of this match: keep things in perspective. The first game went long, really long. It went something like this: I mulligan to four and keep something like two lands, a sinew sliver, and a basal sliver. He starts dropping thallids on the board and then enchants himself with paradox haze...twice. He adds Essence Warden and Mirri to the board and things do not look good. Still I was stopping up the board and holding him off -- taking my beats from Mirri and watching life climb and climb. I made one huge mistake in this game -- I set gauntlet of power to black because I had more black creatures than white -- but of course since he was G/B/U I should have set it to white -- pumping up Mirri sped up his clock and made it impossible for me to trade my riftwatcher for the legend (which I could have done if I set the gauntlet to white making the riftwatch 3/4 and Mirri just 3/2). Once again, I need to slow down. I could not concede the game since if I ever drew Oros I stop Mirri and wrath his entire board other than the flying cat. The game dragged on and on and I eventually lost. Here's the problem: at the end of that game I was pretty rattled about losing to paradox haze and worried that his deck just had too much synergy for me to compete with. I was actually not liking my chances against G/B/U thallid paradox haze deck! Perhaps this helped me play tighter but I sure felt silly after winning the next easily. I boarded in trespassers for a couple lands and slower spells and just steamrolled him game 2 (ie I didn't mulligan to 4). Game 3 was hilarious in hindsight. He got Deathspore Thallid and double Paradox Haze out and ate my early critters. Since he was making at least one -1/-1 token a turn I actually thought the tournament was over for me as my hand of 2/2's and 2/1's were just serving to feed his fungi and delay my demise. Then I drew Feebleness. A couple turns later, I had creatures in play and his only permanents were lands and enchant player auras.
Won match in three games

Top 4 semifinals versus Rich (again)
I remember getting owned by rough again this game. I made a slight misplay by not using a recluse on his Uktabi Drake in response, which leads to another point which I need to work on: in addition to reconsidering the game state each time before I play a spell, I need to try harder to stop the game and consider my responses every time an opponent does something (more on that below). I think I lost that game. I forget how I won the first game but for the last game I know I won once again with the super aggro plan (board out land for trespassers). My poker face must have been particularly good as he was willing to race my early sliver rather than block them. He took some hits down to a somewhat low life level and then I used a key Melancholy to remove a blocker ensuring he had no good blocks for the turn and force his life total low enough that I could alpha the next.
Won match in three games

Top 4 finals versus Chris
All I knew about this guy was that he had "Akroma" in his deck (I didn't know which one) and that he had beat a very good player on the other side of the bracket (who was a bit under the weather). He was friends with Rich and had watched most of our matches as they went much longer his those times so he had signficant advantage in terms of knowledge. I was forced to mulligan down to five or four game one and *almost* won. I had sinew into basal into watcher which is the dream draw after a double mulligan. He unmorphed a Thelonite Hermit to try to knock off my slivers with blocking and played a key feebleness which almost wrecked him but he had the answer in spapback on one of my watcher and double block sinew and basal nuking my board. It was a pretty good effort after the mulligan though. The second game we stalled out with him having double Dusk Wasp and Havenwood Wurm and me holding on and making a game of it as best I could (Riftwatcher plus recluse holding off a wasp, a Vampiric Link on another, Defiant Vanguard defying the Wurm). I was holding him off and moving towards a win with my Blightspeaker trying to follow up on the early beats I got in before he gained board advantage. Then he cast Tromp the Domains and turned all his men sideways. This is the kind of situation where I should as a knee-jerk reaction go "wait, I may have responses". Instead I sat and thought and tried to do all the math and then ran into some trouble when I tried to put Feebleness on his Mire Boa and he claimed that tromp had already resolved (whereas I said that he had never given me the chance to respond). In the end it didn't matter. The damage from the vampiric linked Wasp went through before the life gain trigger so that I dropped below zero and lost before climbing back up. Still I should try harder in the future to avoid communication problems like the one that occurred there.

So there you go. The competition was not too high and by building a competent curve and mana base I was able to steal enough games (I won a couple with Oros too, none with the liege) to make the finals by going 1-2, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 0-2 (that's 7-7!!!) -- but mostly what I will remember are the mistakes and the need for me to play tighter to avoid mistakes and missed opportunities. Hopefully, this account highlights some play techniques that you also could improve upon, or at the very least provides some amusement due to the the trips paradox haze guy (yeah, he had three total in the deck).

Personally, what I want to work on the most is determining the value of two, three, and four casting cost creatures in Time Spiral draft with an eye towards determining what the best curve is. Games seem to be won either by fast tempo or synergy/bombs once the game stalls out. But which is the better plan and how can the two be properly combined? Can a deck succeed without any one or two drops??