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By: whiffy, Georgios Efelis
Feb 22 2009 11:42am
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Hello and welcome to the Magi... wait a second, I'm not Evan. Anyways here we are again and today I would like to talk about Classic as a format as opposed to a specific Tourney or the merits of running any given deck. There will be plenty of deck lists in this article and a specific PE but the focus will be on the format. The inspiration for today's article came about through the success of Bazaar of Baghdad and I on the 2/15/09 PE, and the recent discussions of $70.00 Force of Wills.



Let's start with the PE. I like to consider myself a pretty serious player and study deck lists and tournaments from Classic, Legacy, and Extended looking for trends that can be capitalized in the formats for my own personal glory such as top 8's or deck innovation. One such trend is that the Saturday night PE has been filled with decks not containing FoW. It has gone so far as two straight top 8's with out a single hard counter. A few hours before the PE I messaged Bazaar about the meta and what he would recommend. Bazaar or BoB is fantastic at reading the trends and I will always take his advice (especially after the PE) he agreed that the Sunday event would probably have very few combo or blue decks to have to fight through. Originally I believe he was going to opt for Zoo and suggested I run  Bomberman and although a good Idea I wasn't confident in it's ability to fight through Pox, Rdw, and Elves!. The next suggestion was Enduring Ideal and thought it a fantastic choice but I would have had zero practise with a complicated combo deck and besides that couldn't finish it for lack of to many cards. Finally he dropped the idea of Helm/Line, and at first I thought it was amusing but not something to be taken seriously. However after brainstorming and a building session we  arrived at a list that showed promise against decks that weren't packing significant Blue or trying to win on the 2nd or 3rd turns. Here is the almost identical two lists that we ran to top 8 berths.

 

There's a lot going on in this list both good and bad.The very first thing is that I didn't have access to Vindicate so I ran the suboptimal but quite similar O-Ring.The goal of this deck is to get a free Leyline down and get to Helm as fast as possible. With LotV out and an activation of Helm you will drop their entire deck into the removed from game zone. It works because LotV is a replacement effect so cards never actually hit the graveyard which means that the Helm will continue milling cards because nothing ever enters the graveyard. The deck is pretty straight forward when it come to operating. You have ten tutors to get your missing piece, and a lot of fast mana to win quicker. Most of the time this is a one card, five mana combo that can be cast as early as turn 1 with a half a turn delayed kill. LED is a fantastic card here as it is basically playing unrestricted Black Lotus. The nature of the tutors lets us  break LED, allowing us to use it in a way that was not intended when it was first printed. Lastly the inclusion of Serum Powder allowed us to "cheat" with our opening hand by digging for LotV with out losing a card to the mulligan rule.



This was a deck for the day and not something that we put any testing behind and it shows in some of the card choices. This deck needs to be tuned for more PE's because of a few holes in the meta that we noticed after testing it out in the event. The most noticeable absence is any way to beat an active Necro in game one. Sure there is a huge cheap flying duder but he turned out to be a tad clunky as well. The SB could also use a tweak as some of the cards were just not needed. How ever in spite of these deficiencies it reminds me of something I heard and have been waiting to use it, we got lucky in our match ups by not hitting control till the top 8. Check out this definition of luck I heard.Luck- When preparation meets opportunity. Pretty dead on in my thinking and is something that I feel can be easily understood in magic terms. Another example would be the famous Lightning Helix from Honalulu. Craig Jones from a losing position took a wild leap of faith in a sequence of 2 plays that gave him the opportunity to top deck a lethal Helix.  Just something to gnaw on mentally.



Here is the break down for the specific event and following that our match ups for the day.
 

5x RDW
3x Necro Spike
2x Pox
2x Helm/Line
2x GBW Rock
1x UW Counterbalance control
1x Flash
1x 4c Zoo
1x Dredge
1x Merfolk
1x Deed Still
1x Imperial Painte
1x Classic Teps
1x Slivers
1x Elves!
1x Intuition Control
1x R Thresh
1x Fish
1x White Weenie
1x BRG Agro Loam
1x UG Dreadstill
1x UB Faeries

For a grand total of 31 players. This looks promising for us just on the numbers of combo and control that is present. Here are our match ups with some slight commentary on mine.

Whiffy
Rd 1 Bye
Rd 2 Pox Loss 0-2 In game 1 I mulled too aggressively against pox and killed my chances. Game 2 was a savage misplay on my part punting the match from a turn 2 win.
Rd 3 Helm/Line Loss 0-2 Unfortunately we got paired and BoB just played an all around better game then I did with the deck.
Rd 4 RDW Win 2-0 This was pretty much a bye for me as he cant hope to race me.
Rd 5 RDW Win 2-0 Same as last round.
Top 8 Intuition Control Loss 0-2  Didn't really stand a chance although in game 1 I could have played a bit less aggressive and waited to get out from under daze.
Over all I was extremely fortunate to receive the Bye as it pushed my breakers up high enough to squeak into top 8 with some key match losses in the 5th round.

Bazaar of Baghdad
Rd 1 Slivers Win 2-0
Rd 2 Necro Loss 1-2
Rd 3 Helm/Line Win 2-0
Rd 4 Elves! Win 2-1
Rd 5 4c Zoo Win 2-0
Top 8 UG Dreadstill Loss 0-2
Interesting note is that BoB had two turn one wins in his tourney.

Here is where I segue into my next topic. After the initial list was done I only needed five cards to complete the deck and was amazed that my collection had grown to the point where I could start making decks on the fly with almost no limit on what was in them. I have often stated that Classic is the cheapest format for long term players. The fact of the matter is that when I joined the format  I knew it was costly, but chose to go all in on a tier 1 classic deck. In the last 16 months my collection has swelled considerably with no more then my average budget of about $60.00 a month to spend and the fact that my initial high price deck managed to help me consistently top 8 growing my collection ever further every time I made the money. There are currently over 20 builds at my disposal that were added to over the months bit by bit. You see Classic while having immense card pool, it is actually pretty hard for individual cards to shine as most building blocks of decks come down to just the most powerful generic effect. In other words most decks share a core of cards with a lot of other decks. Think six degrees of Kevin Bacon here, every time you finish one deck chances are your not to many cards off from building a different arch type that shares one of the basic themes of your new list.   Here for example is my first ever Classic list that I took into a PE.

R Thresh
The start of my investment in Classic 9/30/07 4th place finish.
Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Threads of Disloyalty
9 cards

Other Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fire/Ice
4 Brainstorm
4 Portent
2 Predict
1 Rushing River
1 Serum Visions
35 cards
 
Lands
4 Breeding Pool
4 Steam Vents
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Forest
17 cards

Nimble Mongoose


For nostalgia here is the rundown of my first PE.
Rd1 Mono Black Agro Win 2-0
Rd2 R Thresh Loss 0-2
Rd3 Storm combo based off of Helm of Awakening  Win 2-0
Rd4 RDW Win 2-0
Rd5 U/W Tutorstill Loss 1-2
Rd6 R Thresh Win 2-1
Top 8 R Thresh Win 2-0 (Rd2 rematch)
Top 4 Skullclamp Goblins Loss 1-2

It's a Pretty stock list of R Thresh from the time it was played in. At the time it cost me roughly $390.00 to build from scratch, the cost was mitigated some by the liquidation of my Std collection, and this investment while I did add money into the system on a monthly basis has allowed me to compete at the highest levels of organised play and win. Every time I got prize from an event it would go straight into getting the "Staples" building up my collection at a rate of a new deck every  two months in the beginning but now is approaching critical mass where I am only under a grand of having the option of playing anything I want in classic. I would advocate to everyone that has any interest in the format at all to build your self the most competitive deck in your price range and just keep playing for the money. It may be slower now since there are far more cards in the format to start collecting from scratch and the obscene looking price of FoW but it is a very rewarding feeling every time you are able to put the finishing touches on a new deck. The price of this deck  may seem a bit astronomical hovering around $650.00 now and is not even fully powered with any of the Med II duals. However FoW is not the end all for classic play. While it is the most frequently used card in the format plenty of other archtypes have excellent chances at making the money if not the trophy. Here are a few different "Budget" decks that are doing well enough to take up residency in the top 8.
 

Pox
1/29/09 1st place dunkle_stille $158.00 to build from scratch
Creatures
2 Epochrasite
3 Tombstalker
5 cards

Other Spells
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Cursed Scroll
2 Demonic Consultation
4 Duress
2 Extirpate
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Innocent Blood
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
1 Smother
3 Thoughtseize
31 cards
 
Lands
13 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Tomb of Urami
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
24 cards

Pox


This deck long thought to be a bad choice for the meta has surprisingly turned itself around.Whether it is a new and correct build or just the fact that it is consistently hitting good match ups is irrelevant. It is rather cheap to build and barring RDW, or Dredge it has a shot of locking down just about any deck shrugging off a variety of common place answers with the copious amounts of discard and the fact that Crucible breaks the symmetrical nature of its marquee cards.  

RDW
1/22/09 1st place the_crisp_one $203.00 to build from scratch.
Creatures
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Spark Elemental
12 cards

Other Spells
4 Fireblast
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Pulse of the Forge
4 Rift Bolt
2 Sulfuric Vortex
27 cards
 
Lands
2 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
10 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills 
4 Mishra's Factory
21 cards

Sulfuric Vortex


The long thought dying archetype. With every new release this archetype was going to die. True duals in MedII? Oh RDW doesn't get its free 5 damage and they lose. Didn't happen that way. Warmth and Chill in Tempest? Now we can just slow them to a crawl and they cant compete. Still waiting to see either of those cards enter a sideboard. Fact of the matter is, that this archetype is always going to do well no matter whats in print( barring a meta of turn 3 wins) and while this one is a touch expensive for RDW you could easily shave off more then $105.00 by dropping it down to a mono colored deck keeping it under a Benjamen.

Merfolk
2/12/09 2nd place sandydogmtg $183.00 to build from scratch.
Creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Tideshaper Mystic
3 Wake Thrasher
22 cards

Other Spells
4 Æther Vial
4 Daze
2 Echoing Truth
4 Force Spike
4 Standstill
18 cards
 
Lands
12 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
20 cards

Sideboard
4 Chill
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spell Snare
15 cards
 
Lord of Atlantis


Even without Force of Will this is a strong archetype praying on a meta filled with blue cards. The evasion and cheap counters go a long away against control and aggro control builds. Of course FoW is a much better choice then Spike but the pilot has done well barring the "staple" and with the amount of prize he has won I'm sure he is close to picking up a play set if he chose. Lastly replacing Mutavault with the somewhat inferior Mishra's Factory will shave $64.00 from this build. 

Elves!
2/15/09 1st place KENNY_MACAU $140.00 to build from scratch
Creatures 
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide 
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Essence Warden
1 Eternal Witness
4 Fyndhorn Elves 
2 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel 
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote
31 cards

Other Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Grapeshot
4 Skullclamp
4 Earthcraft
2 Squirrel Nest
15 cards
 
Lands
13 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
14 cards

Glimpse of Nature

 

Powered up by the banned in everything but Vintage Earthcraft and Skullclamp we see a Berlin style Elves! take home the trophy in this pe. One of the cheapest builds but also the most powerful for its cost. Any one familiar with the dominance of this archetype from Pro Tour Berlin will see how even in classic if your not prepared for it it will just do its thing and tap dance a large Grapeshot all over its opponents skull piece. The addition of the classic only cards give it a bit of consistency even through board sweepers and targeted removal on its duders. Lastly the warden is a great choice in today's heavy RDW and Necro meta. Allowing the pilot to safely reach life totals that have these point and click opponents struggling to race its combo.

Imperial Painter
1/29/09 1st place RenatoAmado $314.00 to build from scratch.
Creatures
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Vexing Shusher
4 Painter's Servant
19 cards

Other Spells
2 Blood Moon
4 Chrome Mox
4 Grindstone
2 Guttural Response
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Mana Crypt
4 Pyroblast
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
23 cards
 
Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Crystal Vein
10 Snow-Covered Mountain
18 cards

Magus of the Moon


 
 Probably the most expensive budget deck there is but I believe it to be the most powerful deck not using dual lands or FoW. The price line is a little high but its a very versatile and fun deck that is strong enough to play in any meta but truly shines in blue heavy events.Also the list has a few spots main deck and sideboard that can be switched around for an evolving meta.

All of the above decks are perfectly capable of winning a Classic event and most of them are under the cost of a tier 1 or 1.5 Std deck. While looking through prices I noted the very large price tags of the current Std cream of the crop as as hovering in between $250.-$450.00. Now Conflux is on the way and its gonna cost another $50 to $100.00 just to update your deck of choice while in classic we may see a price line for about $100.00 max to get any cards we need for the format as its generally 2-5 cards a set that classic would want, barring an old reprint set or a Med.

Something to consider about the price of these decks is that we are full swing in an Ext PTQ season so some cards have inflated prices due to online testing for real world events. Also come October Onslaught block rotates out of Ext and the back bone of Classic mana bases should drop to about 5-9 tix a pop. With the price of fetch lands guaranteed to drop you can always opt to build the tier 1 decks with few true duals given the help of the fetch lands. For instance you don't have a playset of Tundra but if you do have 4-6 fetch lands you can realistically get away with only 1 or 2 depending on your build shaving off money from the bottom line by saving on redundant copies of the dual.

Even accounting for all these options there are some who will look at top 8 lists and see something like this.

Captain America Pajamas
2/14/09 8th place whiffy penguin $888.00 to build from scratch
Creatures
4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
8 cards

Other Spells
3 Ponder
3 Duress
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
2 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Thoughtseize 
32 cards
 
Lands
1 Swamp
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Underground Sea
1 Breeding Pool
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
20 cards

Wasteland


Seeing this in isolation gives a lot of wrong impressions about the format. The $900.00 price tag emits the illusion that one, the format is all $900.00 decks and two, with out the ability to break a bank you cant compete. While fully powered decks like this one or some of the Dreadstill builds are at an unattainable buy in level for the vast majority of the MTGO there are options to start out with. The format is ridiculously fun and once your into it it's hard to break down and play other constructed formats for lack of the crazy power that's in Classic.

By the way I chose this deck as an example for the fully powered Classic deck because I also wanted to just talk about it a little. Team America is very popular in legacy because it has a lot of disruption for its expected field. In Classic we are missing Sink Hole but its okay as I believe the extra discard is very relevant in our more combo orientated format. I really like this deck because it contains so many of what I believe are the best cards in Classic. Its got the best counters in Fow And Daze, the best power to cost creatures available, and probably the best disruptive plan in 7 discards and 8 land destruction turning Daze into a hard counter for most of the game. Pernicious Deed is new and I loved it. I was finding my self in tough spots and this sweeper allowed me to up %'s against dreadstill, thresh, dredge, moon decks, affinity and aggro such as zoo and fish. Pretty much an overall sweep of all interactive decks. This decks biggest nemesis's are RDW, Imperial Painter or Dragon Stompy. Pox isn't a walk in the park but it is manageable. Just like Thresh this deck doesn't have very many bad match ups or good match ups as the nature of the deck is all about tempo and opening hands. I would highly recommend this build in today's meta with the possible inclusion of another red hoser card in the sideboard.

That's all I have for this one. I hope you all enjoyed this article because I really enjoyed making it. Powered up by two top 8's in a row my fervor for Classic is stronger then ever, and I really wanted to share some of these decks as options for all new interested players to get them hooked on Classic as well.

All decks prices were rounded up to the next whole dollar and all were priced using Mtgo Traders so swing by if you have the itch to build one.

P.S. Just to elaborate on a previous point , using the winnings I received from the two top 8's I have been able to build another new deck based on the principal that with my staples all ready in place I only needed to buy up 20 cards to finish the new deck and 2 of those new cards helped me finish another archetype incidentally. For all players with a long term interest in magic this is the kind of stuff that will save you a lot of money because once your in place with classic cards it is next to no income as new sets come out unlike std and ext where you need to hunt down a lot of cards every year.

George Efelis
whiffy penguin on modo and most boards
Member of clan Magic Eternal
 

17 Comments

Helm/Line Deck by Rerepete at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 13:45
Rerepete's picture
5

Great article Whiffy. Incidentally, what would be the price of the helm/line deck?

price on helm line by whiffy at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 14:26
whiffy's picture

I was hopeing for two thing when i went about fully fleshing out this article.
1. that helm/line would be a viable budget deck.
2. that someone would ask about it.
I purposly left out the price tag on this one after seeing what it was. I left the price off because while it worked for us i dont see this as being a good choice unless the meta is filled to bursting with non blue mono colred decks. Anyway at the time of writing it was $443.00for my build and about $530.00 for Bazaar's. Which is way more then i thought it would b.

p.p.s. by whiffy at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 14:31
whiffy's picture

Something i didnt think about untill after the article was submitted is that although classic cards are rather pricy going from around 5-50 dollars the fact of the matter is that these prices are stable and will almost never drop more then a few percentages in monetary value. After all these cards are expensive because they are the best at what they do, not because its the flavor of the week in Std. Pricy Std cards fluctuate a lot between Real World big money tournys. What was a $15.00 card one week could be $5.00 the next if the meta switches to rapidly. On the other hand a card like Pernicious Deed has benn hovering at 30-34 since october and i fully expect it to go up over time and never drop below the price you paid for it.

whiffy out again!

News to me by Parabola01 at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 18:37
Parabola01's picture
5

I guess you could have lumped me into one of those people who though Classic was format rules by wallets and bank accounts.

I've recently started collected cards for the format that cost at or under $1, and I was surprised how many I got (19 different play sets, and 2 I left to get later). It's really boosted a lot of my casual decks. Reading this article makes me want to play some of these events, though. I've paid over $100 for a casual deck, and trimming a little fat on a few of these decks can get it under that. Once I get the money, I'd love to give this a try.

I'm looking forward to the next article.

I love the Bye, Loss, by Anonymous (not verified) at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 20:49
Anonymous's picture

I love the Bye, Loss, Loss...Top 8. Further engrains in me how "easy" classic is.

DRAGONDUNG's picture

That could of easily happended in std, ext, pauper, name your flavor. He had nine points from their tiebreakers choose who went, I am sure that has never happended in std (sarcasm incase you dont understand) Dont bash a fomat if your unwilling to put up your name. Feel free to come play a classic tourney and show how easy it is, I am sure you can top 8 with little trouble being that you think its so easy.

Whiffy - Awesome. by Giraffe at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 21:52
Giraffe's picture
5

I saw Classic as a $400+ benchmark. Bringing us this cheap perspective is great. Granted I think I'd enjoy the format a bit more if I were running the duals of old, I think I'll pick up something mono color for now to break into the format. Maybe when the money is flowing later I can pick up some duals (though I expect they'll only go up in price.. doh!)

This is a very deep article by morbius4531 (not verified) at Sun, 02/22/2009 - 23:52
morbius4531's picture

This is a very deep article and i like that you are showing people the possibilities of playing the format, you are one of the reasons i got into Classic. Hope you can convince others as well.

very interesting article by LOurs at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 08:15
LOurs's picture
5

very interesting article whiffy, congrat!
I really enjoyed your analyzis.

My feeling about classic meta is that classic decks are seperated in 2 families (as doctors are) : generalist & specialist. I mean specialist decks could be extremly powerful or totaly irrelevant in a specific meta, instead generalist decks are good in average in all kind of meta.

For example : 2 land Belcher (a "combo specialist" deck) is extremly powerful in a rdw meta instead it could win no matches in a heavy blue control meta ... and Landstill (generalist deck) is as good (not excellent but good) in rdw environment as it is in heavy blue environement.

And i think FoW, like some other high prices card like Pernicious Deed or E.Explosives for example, allowed to players to build performant generalist decks = these cards could be remedee to a lot of illness. However, there is no deck stricly better than every other : you can win a PE with Elves!, with Painter, with Pox or Thresh ....
If you are running a specialist deck, you do a bet : if the meta is synergical with your deck, you will have a meta advantage and lot of chance to win. If not, it would harder for you, it would be really difficult to reach the top8... If you are running a generalist deck, it would be difficult to win, but your chances to reach Top8 are almost similar everytime.

Players are often searching a "safe" situation and that is why FoW and allstars cards are considered as "you dont have it, dont play classic". But as you very well mentionned, it does not mean victory.

That's only my opinion. Take care, and i wainting the next article.

PS : i hope my weak english does not malke this comment unreadable... sorry for that if it is the case...

Great report by Bazaar of Baghdad at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 11:16
Bazaar of Baghdad's picture

It's a report that reads like a story - sign of good writing. You have a great message to share, some key tangental insights, have a logical flow, and keep it light. Nice job!

Supplement: tourney report by Bazaar of Baghdad at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 11:22
Bazaar of Baghdad's picture

I don't want to steal Whiffy's Thunder, but wish to add, by way of appendix, my tournament play by play for those interested in picking up the deck.

Round 1 – karash82, playing Slivers
Game 1 – I play first and draw: 2 LED, 2 Helm, 2 Swamps, 1 DC. I mull, but it is probably keepable if you care to Consult for Mana Crypt and not deck yourself. My new hand is: 1 Shrine, 1 Petal, 1 LED, 1 Infernal Tutor, 1 Helm. Perfect, both combo pieces, mana, and acceleration. Actually, since I can only generate three extra mana, I drop the Helm to tutor for turn 1 Necro, draw eight cards and start from there. I went all-in risking a loss to turn 1 Force of Will. Result: turn 2 combo, unimpeded.

Game 2 – I keep 2 Swamps, 1 Shrine, 1 LED, 1 DC, 1 Infernal Tutor, 1 LED. It has no pieces, but plenty of mana and tutors, and the matchup doesn’t really scare me. I draw a Necro and Consult at EOT for Dark Ritual. I draw a Leyline and simply dump it in play via Ritual. Third turn, after not much pressure and no disruption, I draw a Swamp, play Infernal Tutor, sac both LEDs in response, get Helm and combo him out.

Round 2 – Wizard not of the Coast, playing Necro
Game 1 – I play second and draw: Fetch, Swamp, Leyline, 2 Helm, Petal, and Ritual. I keep, and she Brainstorms and Duresses me (Ritual). I draw Dark Ritual, which means I can go off with my acceleration and Helms. However, I know she plays Daze maindeck and I only had 4 mana this turn so I decided to pass. This is risky since she could draw into Force of Will or Necro into Force of Will. Turn 2 indeed she Forces, pitching another. She Consults for Necro on her third turn and ends up drawing her deck after a couple of turns with me on three life and concedes, despite the fact I have no outs in my remaining 21 cards to beat her (eventually I will deck myself).

Game 2 – I play second and draw: Swamp, Lake, Petal, Cabal Ritual, Needle, Helm, and Serum Powder. I could mull with Powder, but turn 1 Needle is too tempting. I draw Leyline, and I play Swamp, Petal (Daze protection), and she DC’s for a FOW to stop my Needle. Dern. Turn 2 She Rituals into Necro, and even discard Needle which spells trouble. I have no action on my turn, and she has a turn 3 kill.

Game 3 – I draw: 1 Fetch, 1 Petal, 2 Dark Ritual, 1 Cabal Ritual, 1 LED, 1 Tombstalker and mull. This was dumb since turn 1 Tombstalker is likely very good, assuming it survives FoW. Even so, I now draw: 2 Shrine, 2 Stalker, 1 DC, and Serum Powder. I mull via Powder for 1 Swamp, 2 DC, 1 LED, 1 Thoughtseize, and 1 Powder. This is keepable since I can disrupt via Thoughtseize and possibly a Needle via Consultation. However, I thought I could do better and mulled, mistakenly not with Powder, and drew 5: Leyline, Swamp, Duress, Petal, Infernal. Pretty good. First turn Duress sees FoW, Ponder, Dark Ritual, Zombie Infestation, Soul Spike, and lands. I take Ponder, denying her a turn one play, FoW fodder, and any active play. I draw LED and play Infernal Tutor for Necro, popping the Diamond with three mana available, but apparently I had sideboarded it out (curses!), so I settle for Pithing Needle on Necro. With zero gas in the tank I quickly lose to Zombie Infestation. Bad play on my part!!!

Round 3 – Whiffy Penguin, playing HelmLine
Mirror, lucky to win.

Round 4 – mK1, playing Elves
Game 1 – I play first and draw: 1 Shrine, 1 Swamp, 2 Dark Rituals, 2 DC, and 1 Infernal Tutor. No combo pieces, but plenty of mana, acceleration, and tutors. On the draw vs. Elves, I would have been more likely to try my luck on a mull. At EOT, I Consult for Leyline. I draw a Cabal Ritual, and play the Leyline with Shrine and a Dark Ritual. At least this stops any Eternal Witness shenanigans. On turn 3, I draw a useless Tombstalker. His board is 1 Forest and three elves with a likely combo next turn. With 2 Swamps and Leyline in play and DC, Infernal, Dark Ritual, and Cabal Ritual in hand, can you spot the win? It took me about 5 minutes, since I don’t have enough mana to tutor for and activate Helm. My solution was to Consult for LED, play it, play Dark and Cabal, and then Infernal Tutor (popping LED along the way) for the magical threshold of 5 mana, which equals activating a Helm that turn.

Game 2 – I foolishly keep Helm, Leyline, Consultation, Serum Powder, Tombstalker, Explosives, Infernal. Drawing one Swamp wins almost instantly, but I never manage that feat in four turns as I get beatdown quickly.

Game 3 – I draw 1 Fetch, 1 Petal, 1 Ritual, 2 LED, and 1 Infernal Tutor. I keep, put the Leyline in play, play all accelerants, crack LEDs while Infernal is on the stack, to fetch Helm for the turn 1 win.

Round 5 – petkos, playing Toolbox Zoo
Game 1 – Replay lost. I won the die roll. I remember having a good hand with a probable turn 2-3 kill, and keep. I Duressed him on the 2nd turn seeing Goyf, Helix, Bolt, and Enlightened Tutor. He didn’t have any white mana sources at this point, but I was taking no chances that Tutor represented Pithing Needle so I buried it. My clock looked like 4 turns, but I got some other good draws and beat him with at least one turn 2 spare, maybe 2.

Game 2 – On the draw, I get: 1 Consultation, 1 CoP: Red, 1 Duress, 1 Crypt, 1 Petal, 1 Vindicate, and 1 Powder. There is some decent hate here, but no stable mana, no acceleration, and pieces. I use Powder to mull into: 1 Fetch, 1 Shrine, 1 LED, 1 DC, 1 Ritual, 1 Tombstalker, 1 Leyline. He plays a Savannah and passes, representing a turn 1 Enlightened Tutor. On my first turn, with Leyline in play, I draw another fetchland and go for: LED, Ritual, Consult, popping LED for 5 mana, allowing me to activate Helm on the turn for another first turn kill.

Quarterfinals – GimliColby, playing StifleNought
Game 1 – I play first and draw: 2 Tombstalker, 1 Swamp, 1 Petal, 1 Seal, 1 Leyline, 1 Serum Powder. I kept it, which is just unexcusably bad. Three unusable spells in the hand, and Seal can’t get anything relevant. It wouldn’t have mattered as a Duress in a couple of turns revealed he had a double FoW draw with plenty of protection. I lose to Mishra beats very easily.
Game 2 – On the play, I keep Shrine, 2x Petal, Dark Ritual, Vamp Tutor, Defense Grid, Powder. Turn 1 Defense Grid seems too sexy to pass up, but I never really draw into anything juicy afterwards. I even tutor for and play a second Defense grid with no obvious win in sight (he only needs to get to three mana to turn on his FoW again), but he Wastelands my shrine, and has a turn 4 Dreadnought to disillusion me. 0-2 vs. a tough matchup, at least given the current configuration.

various responses. by whiffy at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 13:46
whiffy's picture

Parabola01- This article was meant for players with your previous mentatlity. I mean the whole thing smacks of getting around using up your whole paycheck, im really glad you enjoyed it and hope to see you out there come PE time.( also dont be discouraged if your first attempts are unsuccesful as the majority of continuos placing players have a strong grasp of the meta, just keep practising!)

Mr. Anon.- Thx for your input. Im surprised you even took the time to write that nonsence out.

Dragon- Will you be my body gaurd? lol.

Giraffe- Im glad that i could shed the illusion for you and sincerly hope to see you in the pe's.

Morbius- You are the reason I started writing articles about classic. Not only did you think enough of my content to try classic, but from speaking with you your now hooked.

Lours- Thx for the kind words and you are absolutly spot on with your analysis of playing the meta, also ive seen worse english from people who speak and write it as there native tounge.

BoB- Thx for the kind words and the tourny report. I would have liked to use it in the article but 1. felt it would take away from the main point and 2. I dont like to sample other peoples hard work in my writing. thx for posting it.

I would but kinda busy these days by DRAGONDUNG at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 13:59
DRAGONDUNG's picture

I would but kinda busy these days...between kid and too many ventures. Just hate when people hate a format or a particular player for nonsense. Especially when its something the player had absolutly no control over, unless you have cracked the code and aranged to get a buy every tourney lol.

Awesome article!!! by Slim at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 15:59
Slim's picture
5

Last week I had made comment on how hard and expensive I thought the Classic format is to compete in. This article clearly indicates that a non-FOW deck can win. I really like the different deck options that have been listed. This is seriously making me think about trying an event. Many of the cards in the more "budget" decks I already own. Who knows...maybe one day I'll have the budget to build Captain Canuck Long-Johns deck ;P. As for now...one of the more mono colored decks looks interesting.

Thank you Whiffy for this insightful article...it's inspiring me to make a few attempts at Classic.

Good article whiff, in and of by WizNoCoast (not verified) at Mon, 02/23/2009 - 17:20
WizNoCoast's picture

Good article whiff, in and of itself, but also in that it may just show some of the poeple that are put off by the $ connotation associated with classic, that a less expensive deck is indeed still viable.

and good comment bazaar, i liked the bit where i said i won our match :). don't happen very often lol

Mr anon by Anonymous (not verified) at Tue, 02/24/2009 - 01:44
Anonymous's picture

Hey, just here to balance things out. :)

Elves prediction by lakshmi (not verified) at Wed, 02/25/2009 - 11:02
lakshmi's picture

not sure if anyone remember's me going on and on in /auction or w/e through out jan. but i predicted that the classic format atm could not handle a classic elves deck. Anyways just glad too see that this old school real magic player still has insight^.^