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By: Tarmotog, Naoto Watabe
Sep 19 2012 11:47am
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Continued from:
Tarmotalk - Classic Revived: CQ League 2012-13 #1 Round 1
Tarmotalk - Classic Revived: CQ League 2012-13 #1 Round 2
Tarmotalk - Classic Revived: CQ League 2012-13 #1 Round 4
 

Tarmotalk: Round 5 Prematchup Analysis 

My round 5 opponent, ChrisKool, is no stranger to me. He was one of the people who played the 100 card Singleton format back when it was a tournament format. It was quite a surprise to see him in the Classic format, mainly because I haven't seen him playing Classic.

In this tournament, he wields the infamous GW hate deck. (Not an expensive deck for those of you who want to enter the format)

 

I can't seem to get paired with the higher tier Classic decks in this tournament and I was honestly not looking forward to the matchup.
The main reason why I would dislike this matchup is because the deck is fundamentally weak to the matchup from a few angles that make the deck strong.

-Force of Will is bad against bears.
-Dark Confidant is bad against bears.
-Baleful Strix is not great against bears.
-(Staff of Nim) is not great against bears.
-(Stoney Silence) is a Null Rod!
-Artifacts are not favorable against a deck with many artifact hate.
-GW hate is very disruptive.

My strength comes from Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt together being great against bears.
(Thankfully he isn't running any Tarmogoyf or Scavenging Ooze or Knight of the Reliquary so that fact stands)
I also have ways to snatch the game from a fair deck but because they are artifacts, I actually need protection to get them to go the distance.
In some sense, the parts that make this deck good have been lost because of the characteristics of the GW hate deck that is just bad but good because of its badness that drains away the what makes the individual cards good.

That said, it is not a matchup that cannot be dealt with but it is definitely not one where I have an edge going into it.

In game 2, I lose due to a mistake at a critical point with error in technicalities on my part. I was a little distracted by things happening in real life but that fumble cost the game and possibly the match. It was demoralizing for the league to end in this manner (there being intentional draws and all) but it is all part of the game.

Bonus Content: 100c Tezzy.dec vs White Weenie

Before we even began, we had arranged to play a match of 100 card Singleton after the CQ League match. Needless to say, I have much more confidence in that format and for those of you who have no idea why I find the format to be interesting, I have also included a bonus video of our post-Classic 100 card Singleton match.

Tarmotalk: September 16 Classic Daily Event!

This week, I couldn't make another deck I was comfortable with so I just gave up brainstorming and joined with the my Delver Type R deck. I entered the DE without changing anything significant with last week's deck other than swapping a Sylvan Library for its promo counterpart and adding in a second Snapcaster Mage and making the deck a 61 card deck.
The decklist can be found here: Tarmotalk: Classic Revived! A DE fired!
I tried entering the DE the following day but it didn't fire. I made some adjustments in that version.

Round 1: vs Affinity

This matchup demonstrates why I have chosen to play 2x Ancient Grudge in the maindeck. Without such a powerful effect, I don't think a normal deck would be able to keep up with the volume of high powered threats the workshop decks, in this case affinity, contains.

This week, I was quite beat so I browsed through a few games just to get a feel of what I might be facing. I saw workshop, delver, dredge, oath and I was quite comforted because they were more of the type of decks I would much rather be facing.

Round 2 vs Workshops

The only comment I have to make would be that Cavern of Souls is not needed in the workshop deck, coming from my stand that Force of Will is a crappy card going into this matchup. I did win against my opponent who was mana screwed so I would just have to be contented with not having had to struggle to get there.

Round 3 vs Dredge

I tried to find a hand with Wasteland in game 1 as that was the most realistic way I would be able to beat Dredge game 1 but my opponent had Bazaar of Baghdad #2 so that was that.

At 4am in the morning, I failed to see a line of play that would be really strong with my opening hand for my second game. I originally wanted to cast Delver of Secrets and upkeep blindflip then Vampiric Tutor into Grafdigger's Cage. I soon realized that I could have Vampiric Tutored into Yixlid Jailer with double Mental Misstep protection when my opponent Unmasked me. I have not experienced getting Unmasked against dredge although I know of its existence, only that no one has actually cast it on me so I have to say that I was quite shocked.
Mental Misstep is, incidentally, the best protection for Yixlid Jailer as all other graveyard hate have the protection from Mental Misstep removals in the form of Wispmare and Ingot Chewer. Everything from there went downhill in that game as there was no realistic way I could make a comeback unless I drew the cards I needed quickly. That mistake cost me the match.

Round 4 vs Delver

For the last round of a tournament, you'll be paired with an opponent that is ranked next to you. 1st-2nd, 3rd-4th etc so I get to prepare before going into the round. My opponent was playing delver but I couldn't fully grasp what was in the deck just from replays. 

Replays can be quite daunting to watch when they show you how bad a player you are. I guess making good judgment calls is tough when you're not in the right condition. I guess the mistake from the previous game plus the fatigue I was experiencing both made me keep a hand that was not even strong going into the game Force of Will is bad in the matchup, much less 3x. Nature's Claim is a blank card and a 1 nonbasic opener is bad against a deck with Wasteland in it. I had no business winning the match other than a slight edge in card choices and an odd turn of events.

Last Words:

From this week, I truly felt that Magic is quite a difficult game to play both technically going through the stack and making decisions.
My main strengths going into the format comes from my preparedness for the matchups at the deck building level but I would think that I could have won more without my mistakes from the two areas just mentioned and I have yet to truly refine this part of my game. I hope to be able to come to a higher level of technicality but I suppose that means I have to play much more and think about my games more to find areas I could have played better.

-Naoto-

7 Comments

Cavern of Souls by Montolio at Wed, 09/19/2012 - 12:41
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Naoto I have to respectfully disagree with you on the cavern of souls. It has been quite excellent for me against blue based decks so far in my testing. Quite often being able to force through that key Lodestone or shapeshifter can be the difference in a game, that keeps the opponent buried. I have found multiple purposes off of one cavern as well, in using the carvern on a golem to reset it with my own wasteland / crucible in later game to get through a construct "Triskilion" to finish my oppoenet off. It also gives me coloured mana for casting cards like metamorph (small but damage adds up in Stax). Obvioulsy not great against non blue decks, but I would say the meta is more blue based then anything else at the moment. Just my thoughts.

Against shops, the only by Tarmotog at Wed, 09/19/2012 - 18:38
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Against shops, the only counterspell I would want to cast is Mana Drain.
I usually keep in a smaller amount of Fow (the only counter that can counter creatures) to prevent accidental blowouts to Trinisphere. From how I approach matchup, I tend to try to attack the deck with artifact hate instead because I don't 2 for 1 myself and each card goes a long way in the grindy matchup. If it's been great for you, it means that people are still reluctant to remove FoWs from their decks in which case Caverns would be extra good against the Player sandbagging FoW.
I would say that you would eventually not need Caverns in the future but from your feedback, I suppose that it would be good at this point in time.
On a similar note, Caverns is not entirely needed for the gw / gwb decks (other than being good mana) because FoW is also already bad at taking down a hate bear and neither Mental Misstep nor Spell Pierce can touch them.

I would wager most people by blandestk at Thu, 09/20/2012 - 17:20
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I would wager most people don't agree with your assessment of FOW. Is it a 2 for 1? Yes. Is it sometimes the only way you don't get buried under Thorns, Spheres, and Trinispheres? Yes! Is it sometimes the only way you don't get destroyed by a turn 1 Lodestone Golem? Yes! And this is just the Workshops match-up. While I agree on the surface level that a 2 for 1 is bad, there's a reason why the Force has essentially been the most powerful card in any format since the day it was released. I highly doubt I will be siding it out against nearly any match-up.

I think the GW deck is better than you give it credit for, though it may not be a "Tier 1" deck. But it is certainly suited to beat the blue-based decks of the format. Your decks are tuned to beat Shops, Oath, etc. They have just done the same thing, but attacking blue.

Don't get me wrong. GW is by Tarmotog at Thu, 09/20/2012 - 19:45
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Don't get me wrong. GW is legit. Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a merit dedicating slots for Huntmaster in my delver deck. (There are better cards against just delver)
It has cards against Oath and shops and is naturally strong against counters on the virtue that none of the commonly played coutermagic are planned to counter creatures specifically which is why bob is good in the first place.
I respect that deck to a degree more than others but I often use the word bad to desribe its 2 mana 2/2s because none of them are specifically worth casting FoW against. (nothing to do with their relevance in the format)
Didn't I list a whole bunch of reasons why my deck I ran in the league was not favored against it?

GW has similar properties to workshops from that angle where you cannot have enough cards to handle their cards.
The cards you play aren't even capable at taking theirs 1 for 1 consistently, what more when you keep dropping cards to Fow? Unless you have a super early Tinker or casually draw time vault + key, an average draw of workshops can bury a blue player with all of its must counter threats unless your deck has a way to get through their line of attack of beating a "by design land light" opponent.
So far, I only know of one blue deck that by design is strong against workshops (standstill) by its virtue of being land heavy and with its trademark card, can make aggressively casting FoW a managable play.
If workshops is as easy as having FoW to deal with, I would have chosen other decks to play with.
For most blue decks I play, I cannot reach a comfortable level against workshops so I abandon those deck in tournament play altogether. Hurkyl's Recall is only good if you can win the turn after you cast it and only if you even can cast it in the first place.

As people can obviously see, I am not a fan of decks like GW or merfolk being good in the format because there aren't the p9 in the format. Without p9, many cards like Dark Confidant are significantly weaker in Classic despite already getting a high level of respect. Blue decks are significantly weaker especially against sphere and thalia without free mana to pay through them.
For a long period of time in Classic, blue has been considerably crappy in the format the bulk of last year for real reasons. Don't think too highly of it.

Agreed by dangerlinto at Fri, 09/21/2012 - 08:52
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Nothing against GW hate or Merfolk, but those decks are the LEAST able to take advantage of P9. In fact, those two decks in particular are really based on landing wasteland hits on your mana base to keep you from getting anything useful on the table before their dorks pound you. Having artifact mana means those decks usually have to rely on a Null Rod effect as well, and generally that strategy really dilutes their power

Have a look at some Vintage metas and you'll see that those decks are often very minimized, and I also think if you haven't already seen, you might be surprised how little Wasteland is played compared to it's prevalence in Classic.

Honestly I think that by Ranth at Fri, 09/21/2012 - 11:27
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Honestly I think that evaluating a decks strength based on "if we have p9" is just silly.
The p9 is not here, and wont be here for a good long time.
It's just as bad as evaluating standard decks for a tournament that is tomorrow based on if they will be good or not when RtR comes out.
Let's just deal with the current meta and give credit where it's due and enjoy it while it's here.

Also Tarmotog I find the mentality that blue is crappy because it does not crush the field hands down to the point of "play blue or lose" just sounds like sour grapes.

I don't have any qualms with by Tarmotog at Fri, 09/21/2012 - 13:38
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I don't have any qualms with people not being able to do well with blue. Why should I? I have always played blue and generally did well over the tournaments I entered. There are other successful pilots of the color as well so it has nothing to do with the color itself.

Regarding blue being crapy:
From the outside, if you looked at how things were going last year, blue hardly even made decent results. From a deck choice stand, blue was not a color one would want to play going into the format. The other established decks have more or less reached a very high level of completion whereas blue decks had to settle for sub par stuff to get its show going.