Tarmotog's picture
By: Tarmotog, Naoto Watabe
Jan 10 2012 9:01am
0
Login to post comments
2795 views


When the winter celebration details were released at the end of 2011, I knew that I had to be a part of it.

The full list of happenings was quite long. There were old draft events, profitable format sealed events and the biggest of them all was the classic championships which would give the ultimate prize of 4x foil Force of Wills (unless you just wanted something else). Qualifying for that event was difficult (4-0 in a Daily Event or top 8 in a Premier Event) so the expected number of people in it would probably be very small for an event of that level of payout. Without a doubt, that event would be the highest EV tournament of 2011 that does not qualify you for a real life event.
(Easily estimated by taking the prizes and looking at the number of people in the event.)

Classic is a very interesting format because it has a small player base which makes understanding the entire metagame a possible feat.
Despite popular belief that it only contains a few viable decks, Classic is in fact a diverse format where innovation is truly valuable and you can catch people off guard like how wolf run ramp did when it first appeared in standard.

Week 1
In my previous article, I showcased a Blue Red based Landstill deck which was very well positioned against the metagame then.
For the Winter Celebrations, I had upgraded the Landstill deck with green spells. In particular, Trygon Predator was a very good upgrade over Viashino Heretic because it is relevant against fliers (flipped Delver of Secrets) and can also take down enchantments. I was more willing to undergo the usage of the 4th color after deciding to have a Mox Diamond in my deck which was shown to be synergistic with multiple Library of Alexandria by other Landstill builds.


At the start of the Classic winter events, I was officially broke online so I bought 6 event tickets and managed to pilot the deck to 3-1 finishes. (The 6 tickets went a long long way.) It was unfortunate that I had always lost a critical match to a game costing mistake and ended up being just one step away from the golden qualification entry.

I ran the deck in the first PE that fired but I timed out in round 5 (I had an inherent advantage in the matchup but the connection wasn't too good and I used up too much time just going through turns) before finishing at a 4-2 record that was out of the top 8 and was thoroughly disappointed. 
The first week went by without any qualifications although I consistently profited from the DEs, playing once a day if the timing allowed.

Week 2
At the start of week 2, I decided that I did not want to play a deck that could potentially time me out again. One loss from time out was more than enough for me although I was comfortable running Landstill which I felt was a good metagame deck.
I scoured for Vintage tech since the Landstill deck originated from there as well and I wanted a deck that could beat it (because the deck was starting to pick up in terms of popularity) and still have a good chance against the rest of the format. The answer I found was Tarmogoyf. It made sense since neither Spell Pierce nor Mental Misstep could hit it and a bashing big creature that was out of Lightning Bolt range would be really good against (Landstill). I modeled the deck closely to the Vintage deck I found and added my personal touch to compleat (Phyrexian reference) it into a Classic relevant deck, slightly tuned to the metagame of that week which was becoming more Oath of Druids oriented because of 2 combined factors of affinity becoming popular and also being identified by non-Classic players as a forgiving yet powerful deck which could give invites.

Below is the deck:


I wanted to test Scavenging Ooze over the 4th Tarmogoyf because I suspect that it would be good in the mirror, Snapcaster Mage decks and also dredge (and storm possibly). The non-aggro half is a Gush deck but does not include a storm kill which is redundant nowadays where spheres are rather rampant. Usually the creatures are more than enough to win. Maindeck Nature's Claim is to combat Oath of Druids and Workshop decks. Without red, Nature's Claim is as good as it gets in terms of artifact destruction. I wanted to keep the deck to 3 colors but I couldn't escape from black as it was the most efficient anti-dredge color and I would need to use it to secure more wins against the deck.

I manage to go 4-0 twice in 2 consecutive DEs and ran it in the PE to 2nd place, losing to Oath in the finals by not drawing a second land for my Naturalize in game 2 and not getting any answers to a resolved Oath of Druids despite digging 5 cards deep in the final game.

Winning was good but I was revealing too much tech that I felt that I could no longer use that iteration for the champs if I intended to win the event. The time frame before the event and the revelation of the decklists would provide more than sufficient time for people to react. As a Classic player, I believe that deckbuilding is in fact very critical, especially for an archetype that wants to be good against every other mainstream deck. This was also reflected during my one month legacy grinding of 2011.

I strongly feel that numbers in decks can determine the win ratio of a deck. For example, if I ran my Landstill deck with 1 Library of Alexandria, I would most certainly lose to a 4x Library of Alexandria deck unless I had something to create an edge. Numbers are particularly important in decks that do not aim to be as broken as possible. People tend to guard against broken plays in Classic so fair decks can be quite tough to beat.

I made some changes to the Delver deck but I overslept when the next PE fired 2 days after the PE I was in and ironically, it was scheduled on a more feasible timing of 9am (as compared to my 2nd place PE that started at 2am). I felt that that particular PE was very soft because the more prominent names were not in the event so it was doubly worse to have missed it.
On the other hand, I was slightly relieved that I did not have to show any changes to the world yet and that gap somewhat marked the end of the Classic winter celebrations as I could not play in many of the following DEs. Someone piloted my deck from above to top 8 in the event.

When the week officially began on Monday, I told myself that I had a week's worth of time to prepare my deck to go into the champs with.
To be in the know, I bought Steven Menendian's latest e-book and thoroughly analyzed it. It mainly contained his Remora deck that ran green beaters and I liked his tech of Quirion Dryad as a trump to Tarmogoyf. Just to take note, it is important to separate Vintage from Classic when borrowing technology. Mystic Remora is such a case because the lack of moxen makes it more difficult to pay for its upkeep. Forcefully incorporating Vintage ideas will backfire so a line has to be drawn when you want to make adaptations. I read some of his forecasts and found some clues to how I should plan my deck and I used that information together with my understanding of the format to start conceptualizing some plans for a revised sideboard and sculpt a newer version of the delver deck, ultimately deciding against keeping to 3 colors for more stable mana and using the same method of meshing a 4th color as I did with my Landstill deck to add more inherent power to the deck. As you can see below, it is close to a hybrid of the Red based Landstill deck and the Green based Delver deck.


I wanted to hide my plans but still test so I spent the Monday and Tuesday night in the "Anything Goes" room playing solitaire games with sideboarding. I create an image of the matchups with some of the more common and scarier plays I expect to face and I play my hand accordingly. I manage to shadow-test against Dredge, Workshops with spheres, the mirror and Oath while solidifying my sideboarding strategies. Solitairing was what I got out of a podcast which discussed how Kai Budde played apprentice against himself when preparing for events.

From my solitaire session:
-I felt that my dredge hate was excessive yet not sufficient to guarantee wins so I would release a sideboard space for my final iteration of the deck but I would not implement that yet.
-I was highly favored to beat Oath unless they keep churning out turn 1 Oath of Druids with counter backup.
-I had a strong chance against the previous iteration mirror unless they ran out more creatures than I can handle.
-Workshop was not easy because of my diverse mana base which they can attack.
-Affinity was problematic unless I drew enough creatures + removals.

I ran the above prototype version in a Tuesday DE to get a hang of the changes while not implementing everything. I don't suppose anyone would take notice of the deck unless it goes 4-0 so I should be safe. I won Oath, lost to affinity and won 2x dredge that night and I settled down to plan my final changes over the next 3 days but keep my mind open. I did not openly test my deck in the Tournament Practice Room so as to conceal as much information as possible. Information would be the key determinant of my performance in the championships.

With Yawgmoth's Soap Opera 48 going up together with a new So Many Insane Plays podcast on Thursday,I carefully listen to both podcasts to firm up my expectations of what to expect and how I should play my games. Going by the YSO podcast discussion, I felt that I could expect to see more Oath of Druids decks (mainly from the newer players and some veterans), my delver deck (old iteration), lesser workshop decks, a pinch of affinity and dredge.

I first formulate how I want to beat the mirror. The key cards in the matchup would be the creatures and removal spells. The green version is clearly lacking in that aspect which is why I have loaded up with Lightning Bolts. I envisioned the games to go along the lines of there being creatures in play and removals being cast after a while so I prepare a Misdirection for my sideboard slot in anticipation to creating a blowout in the creature war. I also include Dismember which can kill Tarmogoyf since we should mainly have lands, instants, creatures and sorceries/planeswalkers in the graveyard most of the time. In terms of being able to trump the mirror, I have more removals in 2x Lightning bolts and Dismember, Quirion Dryad and Misdirection while they have lesser tools unless they upgrade as well. With those changes, I feel favored against the mirror.

The next I had trouble with. I wanted to dedicate a slot to beating workshop/affinity out of my 2-2 Nature's Claim - Naturalize split. Affinity can get out of hand so I want a mass artifact removal and Pulverize and Seeds of Innocence came to mind. The first required sacrificing 2 mountains but will definitely get through spheres while the latter is harder to get through spheres but does not wreck my board. If I ran Pulverize, I would need to either play Life from the Loam or add the third Volcanic Island to the deck, neither of which I was comfortable with. I chose Seeds of Innocence in the end because I already run 3x Tropical Islands. I was worried about being able to resolving it as it would need to get past Wasteland effects and possible spheres but I really felt that I needed this particular effect.

I cut down on a (Leylone of the Void) from 4 to 3 because I often feel that being too reliant on it is counterproductive and the dredge opponent is usually more than ready to take the leylines down. In any case, dredge is always difficult to beat so the extra slot is better off allocated elsewhere.

In the maindeck, I swap out a Library of Alexandria, the current hyped card for a fetchland because a mana base to support 4 colors just needs a little more help. I also don't want to rely on Library of Alexandria as much because out of control mirror grinds, it can usually be dead weight when you don't get to draw. I would, as a result, have a slightly weaker control vs control game but having aggressive creatures can counteract this point because the opponent would have to react to them. More access to colored mana would also be very critical when it comes to securing the board position with my 4c deck that I did not want to run City of Brass in.

I also change a Scavenging Ooze to a hardcast countermagic of Mana Drain so that I don't only have soft conditional counters. It helps to cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor as well. I also like how it interacts with Snapcaster Mage. I am not sure if that could have been influenced by the fact that I obtained a foil copy with earnings over the 2 weeks. Biasness clouds judgment. Just also want to point out that Mana Drain is good against Oath of Druids and also workshop decks.

With all these changes in place, here is the final iteration of the Delver aggro deck:


In the championships itself, I managed to go 6-0 in the swiss, beating 2 Oath, 2 delver decks, 1 dredge and 1 affinity but I eventually lose in the top 8 to the Oath deck that I beat in round 6 when I keep a risky hand in game 3 that needed a Tropical Island to go crazy but I stall on lands for too long and can't Naturalize with a Flusterstorm backup.

The preparation for the tournament can be said to be successful (as seen from my swiss record) and I felt that I was favored to reach the finals since my t8 opp (who I won in round 6) was Oath and the eventual t4 opponent on the other side was running my previous iteration which I am more than ready to beat. Congratulations to him for also winning the top spot of the event. Not sure how he got past "the my deck" at t4 (because Oath is a good matchup) but I'm somewhat glad that an Oath deck won instead of an affinity deck because I remember hearing on a podcast during the week about how getting 4x (Arcbound Ravagers) just lets you win.

For a format that people believe to be stale (with only a few decks) and dumb (with coinflip wins), I think I managed to prove that being on the ball can produce results. Although I ultimately fell short of getting at least a foil Force of Will, I can now add Force of Will to my list of cards that I won and talk about it in the future like how Vintage people can boast about winning power in tournaments.

You can catch my random MTGO happenings at myMTGO.com which is now my retreat to do all the MTG things that I would have wanted to do on Facebook.

5 Comments

Enjoyed the read. It was by blandestk at Tue, 01/10/2012 - 21:45
blandestk's picture

Enjoyed the read. It was nice to actually see an article with - gasp! - words and paragraphs in relation to classic preparation and theory. Congrats on the winter success!

Thank you. It's a pity that by Tarmotog at Wed, 01/11/2012 - 12:28
Tarmotog's picture

Thank you. It's a pity that the other formats are much more difficult to work on without at least another person. Over the next few weeks, I'll be making some effort to take a look at Modern, try to qualify for the MOCS season 1 and have a deck by then but the notice towards the MOCS format was too short for me to react to. Hope to be back next month to be able to share something substancial.

Nice work Naoto by dangerlinto at Wed, 01/11/2012 - 16:34
dangerlinto's picture

Next time, bring a "broken" deck though. You win just as often and you have far more fun doing it. The trick is to find the "broken" that the least amount of people were ready for... and get a little lucky too.

Trying to play broken stuff by Tarmotog at Wed, 01/11/2012 - 18:27
Tarmotog's picture

Trying to play broken stuff at this point in time is difficult. Whatever you want to do with blue can be invalidated by workshop..
Blightsteel -> metamorph
Time vault -> revoker <- bad mox mana
Storm -> spheres (bad mox mana makes hurk's recall difficult)
And hate bears becomes compressed to protecting blightsteel..
Not running artifacts sidesteps random null rod blowouts too.

With enough artifact/ench hate + snapcaster, attempting 2 card combos isn't easy..
That's my ans now but do know that it's not a legacy deck. Although it may look like one because it uses creatures.. U can blame the one mana 3/2 flier for that. I feel that you can't fight "real" workshop/dredge with bad vintage alternatives. (chrome mox??)

You can play broken by dangerlinto at Thu, 01/12/2012 - 10:08
dangerlinto's picture

Cantripping made a large showing in week #2 with storm, easily out racing the field. Whiffy ran with CTC, which has fully 5 different win condition. Oath won throughout.

I firmly believe it's flawed thinking that every deck can be invalidated by Workshop. If that were the case, everyone would bring workshop - which clearly didn't happen.

To be honest, the winning deck won several games IRIC on the back of Firespout. It played the broken and ran the right sb cards to deal with the meta - which sadly was full of decks that lose to a resolved firespout. There are simply too many good plays in classic to think that one deck can possibly invalidate them all.

PS - the broken =
Shops
Dredge
Oath
Tinker
Yawg Will
Vault

I personally think your deck was pretty good - I suppose it's wrong to think of it not using the broken - it does (Hi yawg will + gushbond). I think I was looking your week #1 deck when I made that comment.