Editorial Section:
Welcome back one and all to this week's State of the Program. Being as the typical thing to do at this time of year is to plan ahead for the next 12 months and set some goals I figured it would be great to do that right here, right now. I won't bore you all with my non-Magic goals as they mostly revolve around a lot of health and fitness and business related stuff. However, if I almost kill myself with it again I'll be sure to impart any life lessons I learn from it, I promise. But what about MTG Goals? I actually had to stop and think about that for a minute as I hadn't reassessed my goals for MTG in a good long time. Thinking about where I am and what I want to do I realized that I am very lacking in direction right now. I've been aimlessly attackingMTGO's constructed scene without much actual focus. So it's time to set myself a distinct goal and allow that help create a path towards that goal.
So where am I right now? Playing Extended trying to cash in on the big events coming up. But that's not a goal. That's not something I can 'achieve' and work towards. Nope, I need a goal for this otherwise I'm sure to languish and hem and haw about what to do. So here's my goal. By the end of Extended season I want to be over 1700 constructed, preferably over 1750 and even more preferably over 1800. So my goal is 1800+ constructed in the next few months. A lofty goal to be sure, but without a goal I'm guaranteed to miss what I want (chalk that up to my last near death life lesson, I guess).
Okay, so 1800+ Constructed.... what else? Writing... to do the above I'm going to need to immerse myself in the world of Constructed. Which means that I'm probably going to start writing about said formats and said strategy. With the amount of time I spend writing I truly must meld my Magic goals with my writing time to make it work. If you've ever wondered what things would be like with a competitive hamtastic at the helm, you're about to find out! So my writing goal will be to not only cover the week's important news, which I will continue to do, but also to document, discussion, and theorize the movements of the Competitive World of MTGO in various formats. With those two items out of the way, let's get to the meat of the article...
Welcome to your (introductory) Extended primer (more will come as I go)!
Practicing:
2 man queues are not worth it for the EV right now with the prize pack being worth about 2.6, if you win four times and lose once, you've net about .4 tickets. To this end, I suggest moving into the 8 man queue earlier and eschewing the 2 man queues entirely. I would love to see an 8 Man Swiss queue for this format to get a decent amount of practice in for the cost. Sadly, we have some sub-optimal choices for practicing this format. Your best bet, besides the 2 man queues is to find other serious players and test with them. Generally this is accomplished via a Clan which I would recommend to anyone trying to test formats outside of Standard and Block. But anyway, the format is unique in its requirements for 'practicing'. It's unique in that the best option for low level decent time to play to EV ratio is the Daily Events which you can find <located here>. Generally I'm a proponent of the 2 man queue->8 man queue->Daily Event path, but sometimes, that just doesn't work out. The daily events are nice in that you get the chance to play four rounds, guaranteed, for six tickets. In that sense, they're already better than four 2 man queues. Add in that you get some promos (for now) and you get more bang for the buck. The upcoming MTGO Event Schedule is a good place to plan your play time around if you're looking to get into daily events.
If you're moving from say, Standard or Block the type of testing required is very different. In smaller formats, you can test against pretty much every deck you will run into. That is simply not possible in Extended. Instead, you have to be more archetype focused in your testing and practice. Instead of practicing againstJund, Boros, RDW, etc, you have to plan, and practice what to do against aggressive decks of all types like zoo, RDW , Affinity, etc. Instead of knowing the layout of a specific control deck you need to know what is important against the typical control elements in the format, what signs to read (like Spell Snare) and how to maneuver againstcounterspells. If you're playing a deck like Tezzerator you'll need to practice even more... answers will change in each situation, as will sideboarding and other major decisions during the game. The one main exception I've encountered is Dredge. While it plays like a combo deck it really needs specific testing. Just throwing a bit of hate at it and expecting it to carry you in is not enough, you must know how to play the hate you are going to use and when to use it.
With this in mind, I hopped into event 809618 with my Affinity deck to see what would happen.
Match 1 Game 1:
Match 1 Game 2:
Match 2 Game 3:
Match 3 Game 1:
Match 3 Game 2:
Sadly for Match 4 I was beyond focusing and missed the recording... it's too bad too as I get blown out by a brutal, brutal sideboarded Fracturing Gust. And that leads me into another discussion topic for Extended, and that is sideboard strategy, deck decisions and "The Fear".
As I just mentioned, I got completely destroyed by a sideboarded hate card (although I suspect it was in there for Tezzerator and I just got hit by the Splash Damage). So what do I do with that experience? I can ignore it, adapt to it, or fight it. If I ignore it I just leave the deck and strategy as it is and write it off as a fluke. If I adapt to it I probably will need to either focus on resiliency or winning faster. I could have, given a different build, won despite the fracturing gust as my opponent was at 3 life. A lightning bolt would have killed him. As would have a Shrapnel Blast... a counterspell would have kept me in that game as well. Or, if I chose to Fear it I would either scrap the deck or completely revamp the plan of attack. I mean, one card beat me, I must be prepared for every deck to have that card, or possibly even worse cards!
As of now, I'm looking at adapting to the possible hate and running a version of the deck that I was very comfortable with last year, that was still powerful but not as raw powerful but was much more resilient. I don't want to give up based on just one bad experience. Other than that round 4 blowout, I had
Decks to watch out for- "Aggro":
RDW - Like the one played by Higdur here
Zoo -
Affinity -
Bant -Like the one piloted by LoneSpirit here.
Discussion items: Momir basic 2 Man thoughts -
Since Momir two man queues are on their way it's a good time to discuss what might happen if they do well...
Momir War Stories -
Did you take part in the Massive Momir Event last weekend? Have any cool stories of luck and/or unluck?
Card Price discussion:
The new MTGO PTQ's are initiating a LOT of demand for Extended cards. Although dealers had a decent stock of cards, as the season draws nearer and nearer those cards have been snapped up and have driven the prices of cards in the older sets higher and higher. Cards from Ravnica, Mirrodin, etc have exploded.
As for the fallers? Not a lot moved down, which is a nice change to see the gainers WAY outstrip the fallers for a week. Mostly just more Zendikar devaluations due to lots of sealed and not as much constructed with those cards. Crazy supply and demand things. You know, that old chestnut.
I'm working away from my typical files this week, so I sadly don't have the nifty Ham Jones chart. But to contrast the change from last week:
Last week Standard: 606.059999999998
Last week Extended: 1313.02999999994
Last week Classic: 1927.23999999994
This week Standard: 602.19
This week Extended 1452.76 (+139.74 !!!)
This week Classic: 1965.67
Tournament Section:
As I mentioned above, I'm moving in a new direction with my MTGO and MTG experience, that of a tournament player with a focus on Constructed (right now). To that end I'll be listing important details about MTGO tournaments as they happen. For this first one, we're currently in 50% off MTGO Extended queue prices while the prizes stay the same! If I weren't already taking vacation with the family I'd be all over these. This will last until January 6th 2009 so get ready for these to be some very popular event for practicing for the MTGO PTQ's!
Conclusion:
That pretty much wraps up this first installment of State of the Program for the new year. I hope you all have a safe (enough) new year and I look forward to sharing my trials and efforts in my new MTG focus for the year! Until next week, best of luck in the queues... unless you're against me. Then no luck for you!
It seems that given how potent the sword/foundry combo is the plan would be not to focus on the red zone. I mean aggro decks have such a hard time beating chump blockers and life gain. I would have thought something like monored storm from std a while back would be a player in the ext metagame. It doesn't get rocked by meddling mage like scapeshift, and it doesn't care about the chump blockers. Burn can slow things down while it sets up rituals and storm, etc. What would you say the metagame factors are that is keeping monored storm/UR storm out?
Match 2 Game 3, He had a great turn two but you kept saying you misplayed sacing the creature early which is true... But you can sac the artifact lands if you wanted to... You were going to lose anyway tho.
Sacing the lands wouldn't have helped against dredge's bridge's since it has to be a non-token creature to keep the bridges under control. I probably still wouldn't have won that one, but it's hard to say for sure since another turn may have produced a Relic of Progenitus or something... who knows. :/
This is indeed my goal, as I plan to demonstrate next week, that in order to improve I must practice and focus on my play. Slow down, focus, etc. A good way for me to do that is to record my progress. :)
"2 man queues are not worth it for the EV right now with the prize pack being worth about 2.6"
Er, huh? Zen packs are worth about 3.6 now, right? Not as good as Pauper 2-man, which pays M10, but still OK. If you play twice and break even, you're -0.4. If you win 4 times and lose once, as you've suggested, you're +4.4.
My apologies, I assumed everyone knew that Extended 2 mans do not pay out Zendikar. If they did, they'd be a much better deal. As you can see in the following link: http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?... they are paying out Alara Reborn, which is nearly worthless right now. :/
If it's relatively easy (I have to assume it is) to edit out the "dead air" while waiting on OK's from your opponent in the videos, I'd suggest doing that, but otherwise top notch as always, sir.
11 Comments
as always excellent article. looks as though there was no wrong way to invest in extended so long as you did =)
It seems that given how potent the sword/foundry combo is the plan would be not to focus on the red zone. I mean aggro decks have such a hard time beating chump blockers and life gain. I would have thought something like monored storm from std a while back would be a player in the ext metagame. It doesn't get rocked by meddling mage like scapeshift, and it doesn't care about the chump blockers. Burn can slow things down while it sets up rituals and storm, etc. What would you say the metagame factors are that is keeping monored storm/UR storm out?
Match 2 Game 3, He had a great turn two but you kept saying you misplayed sacing the creature early which is true... But you can sac the artifact lands if you wanted to... You were going to lose anyway tho.
Sacing the lands wouldn't have helped against dredge's bridge's since it has to be a non-token creature to keep the bridges under control. I probably still wouldn't have won that one, but it's hard to say for sure since another turn may have produced a Relic of Progenitus or something... who knows. :/
Great article Hammy! I especially liked the addition of the videos with comments. And Affinity is a deck close to my heart too.
It would be plain awesome if you were to continue showing those videos with comments in the future :)
This is indeed my goal, as I plan to demonstrate next week, that in order to improve I must practice and focus on my play. Slow down, focus, etc. A good way for me to do that is to record my progress. :)
"2 man queues are not worth it for the EV right now with the prize pack being worth about 2.6"
Er, huh? Zen packs are worth about 3.6 now, right? Not as good as Pauper 2-man, which pays M10, but still OK. If you play twice and break even, you're -0.4. If you win 4 times and lose once, as you've suggested, you're +4.4.
What am I missing?
My apologies, I assumed everyone knew that Extended 2 mans do not pay out Zendikar. If they did, they'd be a much better deal. As you can see in the following link: http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?... they are paying out Alara Reborn, which is nearly worthless right now. :/
Looks like Affinity won the online PTQ yesterday. It may be becoming a little more popular, meaning a little more hate soon...
heya :)
If it's relatively easy (I have to assume it is) to edit out the "dead air" while waiting on OK's from your opponent in the videos, I'd suggest doing that, but otherwise top notch as always, sir.
Its actually a lot harder/more time consuming to edit dead air on a live game than a replay.