KaraZorEl's picture
By: KaraZorEl, Winter Trabex
Oct 12 2011 10:45am
5
Login to post comments
3160 views


Overdrive is a PRE event held every Monday night. At its inception, it used the Overextended format, which is like Modern but includes more blocks further back in time. I first came there playing a mono-black control deck with Kokusho, the Evening Star and Extraplanar Lens as to accelerate my beatdown. The deck might be slightly more viable with the inclusion of Heartless Summoning, though it's still not tier 1, not without a way to combo out or hit for tons of damage super fast. Because my decks weren't viable, I took some time off from the event. On Monday night, I returned to the event ready with a deck that has two infinite conditions and a few other nasty things.

For the purpose of brevity, I will only list decks which won at least one game. I'll start with mine. 

 

My deck relies on the interaction between multiple cards at once. I've tested it two ways- with Green Sun's Zenith, and then without it using Glittering Wish and Time of Need. Given the choice between turn one Birds of Paradise or Aether Vial, I like the Vial turn one as it allows me to get Melira turn 3 if needed. Using the Zenith also provides me with a greater facility in my sideboard. I was eliminated by an Empty the Warrens and Grapeshot deck which came down to me having the wrong color mana on my last turn. I played 3 games against it, went 1-2 and drew 3 lands during my last 10 turns total. I am very optimistic that this kind of build can survive as long it has the correct mana base.

 

Dirty Duck's 12 post relied on Scapeshift and employed the normal strategies you might expect from the deck. Dirty Duck actually lost to a rogue deck, B/R Goblins. This deck is most dangerous when it is not interacted with and it is allowed to do whatever it wants. Mindbreak Trap is a card the deck never expects to hard-cast, but is always meant to be used for the 0-cost trap effect. In the metagame I observed tonight, players were able to storm more than once on occasion.

 

Dark Confidant is an interesting choice in this deck because, unlike many of the other decks in which he is utilized, there is sometimes a chance of finding something with a high CMC. The life loss from Thoughtseize and the fetch/shock lands seem to indicate that this player has the utmost confidence in their deck, which is something I can't always say for even my best decks. I like to prepare for the worst case scenarios in which I don't get what I want. No_Greed's deck is very dangerous in the late game and attempts to disrupts someone's hand in the early game so it can survive. Koth of the Hammer appears to be the all-star of this deck.

 

Next up is another aggro deck that does unusual things and doesn't contain the cards you might expect. Liege of the Tangle has always been a powerful card though its CMC and the potential of letting an opponent kill your lands has made players shy away. At first glance, the deck appears to be counter-intuitive as it has 19 lands and creatures with a very high CMC. Tonyg87's victory came against a Tempered Steel deck, so there may be something to this, despite all indications that it's not fast enough.

 

 

Stenchskipper is not a card that usually sees play in Goblin decks, but swinging for a big chunk of damage in the air is not something to be overlooked. As with most Goblin builds, the deck pumps them when they are in play and has them do things when they die. As might be expected of a "damage target creature or player," this deck's worst matchup proved to be lifegain. For this type of deck, I think Shared Animosity works better, though it is very dangerous as is anyway.

Kontratari's Grapeshot Storm
Semi-Finalist
Creatures
0 cards

Other Spells
4 Rite of Flame
4 Ponder
2 Ideas Unbound
1 Banefire
4 Preordain
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Remand
1 Grapeshot
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Muddle the Mixture
4 Peer Through Depths
42 cards
Lands
6 Island
7 Mountain
1 Cascade Bluffs
3 Shivan Reef
1 Shivan Reef
18 cards

Grapeshot

 

The semi-final match Kontratari was given ended up being a storm vs. storm match. There's only one Grapeshot in the entire deck, so the deck's main win condition is Pyromancer Ascension. This person's semi-final match played like a race of "who can get there first." Rite of Flame is surprisingly strong here, especially if it gets cast with a hot Ascension on the field. The mana base is likely to improve after Innistrad, though I don't know if the deck will be viable after the bannings.

 

grapplingfarang's deck will have to change significantly after the bannings as it contains nine cards which it will not be able to utilize. The best result the deck had was against me when it was able to storm out with one land for about 12 goblins on turn 1. In the finals, the deck matched up against a lifegain deck, which was a bad matchup for it. Gitaxian Probe is a lot stronger than might have been intended as it is basically a Reach Through Mists with an added bonus that doesn't cost mana. I have a feeling that this type of deck build will still be viable even after the bannings and Wizards of the Coast will be forced to enact another series of bans, which may or may not upset people even more. For the immediate present, however, a very strong deck is long many of its good pieces.

 

Soul Sisters was a popular deck in the summer of 2010 when Soul's Attendant, Soul Warden and Ranger of Eos were all in standard. Here, the deck utilizes the unbelievably strong Martyr of Sands as a way to gain lots and lots of life right away. In the finals, this deck had its pilot at 40+ life with a Serra Ascendant sitting on the field on turn 2.. Militia's Pride ensures that even more creatures come into play. Gideon's Lawkeeper slows down an opponent's beat-down strategy. Given that pelao28 has won the event two weeks in a row, it appears that a control or combo deck would be the way to defeat it. For better or worse, only one user played a control deck utilizing U/W and that deck lost in the first round.

Overdrive takes place every Monday night at 8:30 PM in the the /Overdrive! room (the exclamation point is necessary here). For October 22nd, there is also a Eurodrive! event planned in a time slot more favorable to European residents- 1200 GMT on Saturday. Hope to see you there!

3 Comments

8:30PM by apaulogy at Wed, 10/12/2011 - 12:07
apaulogy's picture
5

EST.

I want to do the Eurodrive one because, believe it or not, being a father, a full time employee, and a half-time student means 5:30 PDT (which is when the normal Overdrive! event happens on the West Coast) is quite a stretch for me.

4:30 AM PDT on Saturday is better.

The person who is planning to by KaraZorEl at Wed, 10/12/2011 - 12:14
KaraZorEl's picture

The person who is planning to run the event has Legacy Tribal at 12 PM EST or so and then another event at 8 PM or so. The proposed time is 5 AM PDT Saturday morning.

You can find the thread here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/28491831/Gauging_inter...

apaulogy's picture
5

Thank you though, Winter.

I just have to throw in the "Hey, I live on the West coast" caveat to these sometimes. :)