Explorations #15 - 100 Red Cards

Steve Gargolinski 

I knew that I had some time this weekend to play in a tournament, but I was having a tough time deciding between the Classic Daily Event and the 100 Card Singleton PE.  As you can probably tell from the title of this article, I decided to go with the PE.  Tarmotog's articles (read them here) have interested me in the format enough to give it a shot, plus after reading his last article I have most of the cards necessary to build a wide variety of decks.

So I started trying to figure out what to play.  I read everything I could find, which wasn't much at all, and looked around for decklists.  Here's what I learned: 100 Card Singleton is not a widely discussed format.  It's pretty new, so this is understandable - but there just isn't very much literature out there.  This threw a major monkeywrench into my plans, reading voraciously followed by participation is my general strategy to attack any problem.  Part one of this is mostly out the window, so I figured out the information that I could and then decided to move on.

The first thing that I wanted to do was figure out the theme of 100 Card Singleton.  Tarmotog's articles have given me a decent idea, so let's break it down at a really high level.  What are the major differences between 100 Card Singleton and other formats that I'm familiar with?  There are three major attributes: larger decks, one-card playsets, and an unfamiliar banned list.

To get it out of the way right off the bat, the ban list for 100 Card Singleton seems very weird to me.  I can understand banning tutors, but some of the other choices (like Umezawa's Jitte and Crucible of Worlds) just seem odd to me.  I don't have enough experience with the format to say for sure, but having one Crucible of Worlds out of 100 cards to recur fetchlands doesn't seem broken to me.

The other two attributes (one-card playsets and larger decks) can be summed up in one word:  inconsistency.  Most decks these days run sixty cards and lots of playsets; this is done to come to battle with the most consistently powerful deck possible.  Figure out which cards advance your deck's strategy in the most complete way, and run as many of them as possible.  This doesn't mean that numbers other than four are invalid, but building a deck out of singletons is a far cry from what the majority of competitive Magic players do when they sit down to make a deck.

Let's take a look at a Classic Burn deck:

Burn

Steve Gargolinski - Classic Legal

Creatures 3 Grim Lavamancer 4 Spark Elemental 7 cards Other Spells 4 Incinerate 1 Browbeat 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Sulfuric Vortex 4 Lava Spike 4 Rift Bolt 3 Flamebreak 2 Thunderbolt 4 Fireblast 4 Volcanic Hammer 31 cards

Lands 3 Mishra's Factory 19 Mountain 22 cards Sideboard 4 Pithing Needle 4 Tormod's Crypt 2 Sulfuric Vortex 3 Null Rod 2 Vexing Shusher 15 cards

This list starts off with a full playset of Lightning Bolt...  and then adds in a whole ton of cards that would ideally be more copies of Lightning Bolt.  Incinerate, Spark Elemental, Lava Spike, Rift Bolt, and Volcanic Hammer are all mostly just inferior to Lightning Bolt.  Why does this deck run so many crappy Lightning Bolts?  Because it needs a burn package of twenty-five or so cards, and you can only run four Lightning Bolts.  This same principle is what we need to deal with in 100 Card Singleton, except taken to the extreme.

Let's say we were going to make a burn deck in 100 Card Singleton.  The Classic deck above runs a mix of the following:  37% land, 47% burn, and 16% other.  Some cards don't fall neatly into categories (Flamebreak, Browbeat) - but these numbers are solid enough for our example.  If we extend this mix to a 100 Card Singleton burn deck, then here are some rough numbers that we could use to fill out our deck:

37 lands
47 burn
16 other

Alright, so we'll go ahead and start our deck off with thirty-seven Mountains and our one legal copy of Lightning Bolt.  That's a good start.  Now we only need to figure out the fourty-six other burn spells that we're going to run!  When you're playing the Classic deck, then most of the time you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're getting.  When you're playing our 100 Card Singleton version, then you know that 47% of the time you're going to get burn - but instead of narrowing down the list to a handfull of cards, you have a chance of seeing any of your fourty-seven different spells.

This is an example of viewing your deck as functional pieces instead of actual cards.  We've abstracted the list to the point where we've decided that forty-seven units of burn is correct, and now it's time to decide on the actual cards to use.  This can be further broken down by casting cost if you'd like.  Maybe our example looks something like this:

37 lands
20 one-mana burn
27 two-mana burn
16 other

Take a look at the deck above again for an example of this more complete functional breakdown.  The Classic burn deck above runs four Lightning Bolts and four Lava Spikes.  Lava Spike is a strictly inferior version of Lightning Bolt, and the only real reason to run Lava Spike is if you're already maxed out on Lightning Bolts (Arcane tricks aside).  This type of analysis isn't unique to burn decks, and can be used in many other situations.  For example, a mono blue control list may break ratios down into two-mana counters, three-mana counters, card draw, board control, and win conditions.

Things aren't always as simple as Lava Spike over Lightning Bolt.  In present day Standard, players commonly choose between four different cards when it comes to filling out the one-mana burn slot: Tarfire, Shock, Shard Volley, and Magma Spray.  Neither of these four are strictly better than the others, but yet games can be won or lost depending on which one you have in your hand.  These are difficult decisions for deck builders to make.  Deck building itself is the science of figuring out not only the high-level strategy to apply, but also which of the available options best implement that strategy.

So what does all of this have to do with 100 Card Singleton?  Well, pretty much everything.  Applying a focused strategy is a lot tougher in 100 Card Singleton than it is in other, more traditional formats.  As shown above, it's a lot more difficult to build effective redundancy into your deck.  Armed with this line of thinking, valid or otherwise, I decided that I would definitely be playing an aggro deck in this PE.  Why?  In a format with built in inconsistency, there's a lot to be gained by focusing on eliminating this attribute as much as possible.  If an opponent stumbles (without access to the correct mana or with answers to the wrong questions) then an aggressive deck can just run them over before they get going.  That's the idea anyways!

With limited time to prepare, Red Deck Wins seems like the deck for me to play.  I thought about white weenie, but when I saw that Umezawa's Jitte was banned I settled on RDW.  There are a huge number of burn spells and aggressive creatures available in the Classic card pool, so while I couldn't play four copies of Lightning Bolt - I felt comfortable with the selection of cards available.  I'm personally not a big fan of playing red decks, but I couldn't think of anything that did a better job of overcoming the built-in inconsistency of the format.

Here's what I played:

Lands 21 Mountain Barbarian Ring Blinkmoth Nexus Bloodstained Mire Dwarven Ruins Forgotten Cave Ghitu Encampment Keldon Megaliths Keldon Necropolis Mikokoro, Center of the Sea Mishra's Factory Mutavault Snow-Covered Mountain Spinerock Knoll Stalking Stones Wasteland Wooded Foothills

One-Mana Cursed Scroll Pyrite Spellbomb Sensei's Divining Top Figure of Destiny Firebolt Frenzied Goblin Frostling Grim Lavamancer Jackal Pup Lightning Bolt Magus of the Scroll Martyr of Ashes Mogg Fanatic Seal of Fire

Two-Mana Dwarven Blastminer Dwarven Miner Glacial Ray Hearth Kami Incinerate Keldon Marauders Lash Out Magma Jet Mogg War Marshal Smash to Smithereens Sudden Shock Volcanic Hammer Vexing Shusher Blood Knight Slith Firewalker Stigma Lasher

Three-Mana Duergar Hedge-Mage Barbed Lightning Browbeat Char Flames of the Blood Hand Magus of the Moon Rift Bolt Taurean Mauler Urza's Rage Countryside Crusher Hammer of Bogardan Hell's Thunder Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Molten Rain Thunderblade Charge Boggart Ram-Gang Flame Javelin Ashenmoor Gouger Ball Lightning

Four-Mana, Five-Mana, and above Avalanche Riders Flametongue Kavu Giant Solifuge Murderous Redcap Blistering Firecat Violent Eruption Arc-Slogger Beacon of Destruction Chandra Nalaar Lightning Surge Siege-Gang Commander Thunderblust Greater Gargadon Demonfire

I'd like to tell you that I had a careful, calculated approach to assembling this deck - but I didn't.  I loaded up Magic Online and started going through red cards and adding everything that looked aggressive and fun.  I threw in thirty-seven lands and then did my best to trim away to one hundred cards.  After this I went through some decklists that I found online and added in some cards that seemed crucial that I had forgotten.  After this I ended up with something that didn't look completely terrible (even though I forgot to add Fireblast), so I decided to run it.  This deck is loaded up on cards that cost one, two and three - with a few powerful finishers at four and five mana.

I'm expecting a lot of other people in this tournament to come to the same conclusion as me (consistant red decks have a big advantage), so I was considering some tech - but I didn't have enough time after .  I also wanted to get in a few test games, but I didn't have any time.  The tournament is starting, so my first ever games of 100 Card Singleton will be in the PE!

Round 1 vs Ludvik with RDW Game 1 It's obvious that I'm about to enjoy the mirror match on turn one, when Ludvik starts off with a Jackal Pup.  We each play out a Ghitu Encampment and then I use Incinerate to blast his Jackal Pup.  He plays out a Stigma Lasher and Mishra's Factory; I come back with Slith Firewalker.  Avalanche Riders takes out my Ghitu Encampment, and we trade beats for a turn or two. I flip a bunch of crap with Spinerock Knoll (three lands and Dwarven Miner) and then play a Boggart Ram-Gang on defense.  I'm down to ten life.  If I don't hold something back for defense he'll win the race with pretty much any burn spell.  Ludvik casts Countryside Crusher and then attacks me down to four.  I crack back with my Firewalker and Boggart Ram-Gang, piling on Incinerate plus Barbed Lightning for the win. Game 2 I start off with Spinerock Knoll and have my choice of: Mountain, Mountain, Mutavault, or Sensei's Divining Top.  I am zero for two on the sweet Spinerock Knoll flips thus far.  Ludvik plays out Gruul Guildmade and then Jinxed Choker, and the best I have to come back with is Dwarven Miner and then Blood Knight.  I eventually play out Giant Solifuge and get ahead in the damage race, but then my Blood Knight goes down to Fireblast and Ludvik is able to get Ball Lightning through.

At this point I'm way too far behind on life to win, the Jinxed Choker eventually does me in.  I did draw Blistering Hellcat, which made things close, but I end up one turn too slow.

Game 3

I play Ghitu Encampment on turn one; my opponent plays out Frenzied Goblin and then Hearth Kami.  I get through for four with Hell's Thunder, and Ludvik adds Grim Lavamancer and Gruul Guildmage to his army.  I'm forced to Incinerate the Guildmage, since the pump ability would have absolutely destroyed me.

He plays out Magus of the Moon and I draw three cards off of Browbeat into Cursed Scroll and Seal of Fire.  Avalanche Riders hit the table and take out my Ghitu Encampment, and I have to use the Seal of Fire to take down the Magus of the Moon so that I have a chance of racing.  I play out Giant Solifuge and swing, with a plan to win with Char and Beacon of Destruction - but my opponent gets through a ton of damage with Giant Baiting and puts me down to one life.  Char is useless at this point, and my opponent has a special surprise for me: Blistering Firecat.  I go down hard.

Loss 1-2.  0-1 (1-2 games)

Round 2 vs yorick with RDW

Game 1

My opponent leads with Ghitu Encampment, and I suspect another matchup with RDW.  I don't have a play until turn three Boggart Ram-Gang, but the 3/3 immediately gets hit with Incinerate.  yorick comes back with Ball Lightning and then Blistering Firecat and Hammer of Bogardan.  I try to get something together with Magus of the Moon and Giant Solifuge, but I'm way behind.  Pyrite Spellbomb and Urza's Rage finish me off.

Game 2 I start off with Dwarven Ruins into Sensei's Divining Top and Hell's Thunder.  yorick plays Magma Jet, Ashenmoor Gouger, and then hits my new Mishra's Factory with Molten Rain.  I play Figure of Destiny, but I don't have enough mana to save him from Volcanic Hammer.  I use Sensei's Divining Top to setup consecutive draws of Lightning Bolt and Flame Javelin, enough to win, but I come up one mana short when Ashenmoor Gouger plus Char hits me for exactly my remaining eight life. Loss 0-2.  0-2 (1-4 games) Things are not going well.  My first two rounds of 100 Card Singleton, two red deck mirror matches, and my first two losses.  If I had just been one half of a turn quicker, or won the flip, in a few games then I'd be 2-0 instead of 0-2.  That's how things go sometimes!  Hopefully I'll be able to turn things around. Round 3 vs Raxen with RDW Game 1 I play Jackal Pup on turn one, and then Raxen shows his RDW colors and sends some pain my way by taking down the Jackal Pup with Seal of Fire.  Three rounds and three red deck mirror matches!  I play out Grim Lavamancer and Raxen drops Ghitu Encampment and Emberwilde Augur.  I take out the Augur with my Lavamancer and then cast Countryside Crusher.

Raxen brings a 1/1 Epochrasite into play and immediately chump blocks Countryside Crusher.  I use Molten Rain to take out his Encampment and Countryside Crusher takes care of the rest.

Game 2

Raxen leads off with Cursed Scroll and then a morph.  I play Dwarven Miner, use Seal of Fire to take down the morph Skirk Marauder, and then play down Stalking Stones.  The Stones get cracked by Molten Rain, but I come back with Wasteland and Countryside Crusher - unfortunately for me, Fissure gets rid of my Crusher before the big guy can do any damage.

I use Hearth Kami to get rid of Raxen's Cursed Scroll, which was just about to come online.  He plays Hissing Iguanar and then I finally hit RRR for Boggart Ram-Gang.  Raxen comes out with Epochrasite and then Blood Knight; I use Flames of the Blood Hand, Magma Jet, and then get Arc-Slogger for the win.

Win 2-0.  1-2 (3-4 games)

Round 4 vs Calyps0 with Five Color Something

Game 1

I lead with Spinerock Knoll (finding Jaya Ballard this time), Grim Lavamancer, and Pyrite Spellbomb.  Calyps0 plays Sakura-Tribe Elder, Mishra's Factory, and then one of my worst nightmares: Wall of Roots.  I put some pressure on the Wall of Roots with Giant Solifuge, but Calyps0 just takes the damage.  He comes back with Phyrexian Arena and then Garruk Wildspeaker.

I attack again and take out the Wall of Roots, but then Damnation clears the board.  I come back with Blinkmoth Nexus and Vexing Shusher, but Ink-eyes is a lot scarier than either of those cards.  At this point I make a total donkey move and try to pile up damage on Ink-eyes with Frostling and Pyrite Spellbomb...  but of course Ink-eyes regenerates.  Somehow I've gone like five years without realizing that Ink-eyes regenerates.  Of course I lose this one, I deserved to. Game 2 I start off with Jackal Pup and then Vexing Shusher.  Calyps0 uses Smother to take out the Shusher, and I draw three cards from Browbeat.  Pernicious Deed hits the table, but I'm not particularly worried since not much of my deck needs to stay in play for long to do real damage.  I lay down Seal of Fire and cast Hell's Thunder, getting through for a decent amount of damage early. Calyps0 uses Murderous Redcap to take out Jackal Pup, and I use a Redcap of my own - but send the damage straight to Calypso.  We end up trading Redcaps in the red zone; Calyps0 uses his damage point to take down my Redcap for good, and I use my damage point to take my opponent down one more life.  I unearth Hell's Thunder, which prompts Calyps0 to fire off Pernicious Deed.

Calyps0 casts Eternal Witness to grab Smother, but I don't need any creatures to win - Glacial Ray, Volcanic Hammer, and Barbarian Ring total up to exactly enough damage.

Game 3

Calyps0 starts off with Forest into Selesnya Sanctuary, which I hit with Wasteland.  He replays the Forest, but never gets another land.  I play Stigma Lasher, Hell's Thunder, Hammer of Bogardan, Arc-Slogger.

Win 2-1.  2-2 (5-5 games)

Round 5 vs so many trolls with RGw Aggro

Game 1

I start off with Jackal Pup, so many trolls plays out a 2/3 Kird Ape via Taiga.  I Wasteland his Taiga, get in for some damage, and then play out Spinerock Knoll tucking away Blistering Firecat (which I honestly would rather have in my hand).  We each play out a copy of Dwarven Blastminer, and then I use Lightning Bolt on his while playing out Figure of Destiny in order to get through some more damage.

so many trolls takes out my Figure of Destiny with a Lightning Bolt of his own, and my Blastminer sends his Temple Garden to the graveyard.  He plays Tin Street Hooligan, who blocks and kills my Giant Solifuge on the next turn.  Jackal Pup is still alive and well at this point, Figure of Destiny drew the Lightning Bolt that was probably meant for him, and so many trolls is down to 11.  I play out Ghitu Encampment and Slith Firewalker, attack for two turns, and then finish with Flame Javelin. Game 2 so many trolls gets stuck on just one land, but he also has Werebear and double Fyndhorn Elves.  I play out Rift Bolt and Ashenmoor Gouger into Boggart Ram-Gang.  so many trolls casts Magus of the Moon, but I take it out with Flametongue Kavu and get in for a ton of damage.  He hits my Ram-Gang with Lightning Bolt and then casts Ravenous Baloth.  I swing with everything and then cast Barbed Lightning and Lightning Surge for the win, despite the Baloth life gain. Win 2-0.  3-2 (7-5 games) Definitely out of top 8, but a win should get me top 16 and five packs.  Determined to win!

Round 6 vs Flughund with RG Aggro

Game 1

I play out Mutavault and swing on turn two, but Flughund has Lightning Bolt - bummer!  He plays out Blinkmoth Nexus, I cast Slith Firewalker, and then we end up trading.  One man land for another.  I cast Boggart Ram-Gang and then Magus of the Moon.  Flughung uses Char to take care of the Ram-Gang and then plays out Grim Lavamancer and Sword of Fire and Ice.

I use Lash Out on the Lavamancer to counter his equip attempt, and then Lightning Bolt a Kird Ape when he tries to give the gorilla a Sword of Fire and Ice.  I get Boggart Ram-Gang into play and then he casts Magus of the Moon and attempts to equip, but this time I have Violent Eruption.  I untap and swing, using Molten Rain and Thunderblade Charge to seal the deal.

Game 2

Flughung plays out Firewalker, and I take it down with Incinerate.  He comes back with Ghitu Encampment and a morph.  I use Avalanche Riders to take down his Encampment, but he uses Redcap and leaves me with nothing.  My hand is five lands and things are not looking good.  He plays out Arc-Slogger and they are looking much worse.

Game 3

I play Forgotten Cave and he plays out Kird Ape, which stays 1/1 for a while.  I get Mogg War Marshal and then Boggart Ram Gang, all of which are able to swing through his newly summoned Ashenmoor Gouger.  He plays Quirion Dryad and then uses Volcanic Hammer on my Boggart Ram Gang, and I'm able to take out Ashenmoor Gouger on defense with Mogg War Marshal and Lash Out.

Flughund plays Boartusk Liege and I come back with Thunderblust.  He chooses not to block and takes a ton of damage, counterattacking with his whole team.  I chump block as much as I can and then swing back with my Thunderblust.  He uses Magma Jet during combat to stall my win, but I have Beacon of Destruction in response for the victory.

Win 2-1.  4-2 (9-6 games)

I make virtual top 8 at 4-2, but my tie breakers are absolutely terrible and I just make squeak into five pack world at 16th place.  One of my losses was pretty much a blowout, and the other one featured two very close losses - with a little bit of luck I definitely could have been 5-1.  Of course with a little bit of luck for my opponents I could have ended 3-3 or 2-4.  Anyway, not too bad for my first shot at 100 Card Singleton.  My guess on the metagame was pretty accurate: other than the one five-color control deck I played five aggressive red or red-green decks.  This view of the metagame is only based on my matches, I didn't get a chance to check out the top 8 - although one of my buddies did tell me that a UB control deck ended up winning the tournament.

I'm not sure how I feel about the format.  I really love playing decks that have a real plan, and I love being able to play around what is left in my deck.  100 Card Singleton adds so much variance to the format that this is pretty tough to do.  I understand that this variance is one of the selling points for the format, but it may just not be my thing.  While building my deck I was debating between two cards and trying to fight the feeling of 'it doesn't really matter'.

Let's say that my games go an average of 10 turns.  This means that in each game I have around a 17% chance of drawing this card.  In an average match, there's a huge chance that you won't see this card at all!  I can definitely get excited about swapping out a playset of something for a playset of something else in a sixty card deck, but it's a lot harder for me to get excited about switching out one card for another in 100 Card Singleton.  Maybe I'm thinking about it incorrectly?  Maybe I should be thinking about something like swapping out 6 land destruction spells for 6 burn spells instead?

I think that this problem is made even worse by the fact that there's no sideboard.  It does seem weird to be sideboarding fifteen cards into a one-hundred card list, but what about expanding the size of a sideboard in 100 Card Singleton to twenty-five cards?  Or even thirty?  If the idea of this format is have high variance, then I don't understand why in the world you would get rid of the sideboard.  Personally I like the idea of playing sixty cards with a fifteen card sideboard - but I'm definitely open to having my opinion swayed.

So who else played in this tournament?  What did you run and why?  Which decks did you run into?  What are your thoughts on the format?  How did I screw up my play or deck?  Was my PE view of the metagame totally warped (red everywhere)?  Let me know!  Thanks for reading!

Steve Gargolinski
spgmtgo@gmail.com