Steve Guillerm
6/18/2012 10:52:00 AM
Last week's article was an interesting one. Well, maybe not the article itself, but certainly the comments section. Despite devoting around 25% of the article to a quick take on Standard and the possibility of a ban, nearly everyone who commented on the article referred to that part. The next most popular topic (3 of 43 comment threads) was that I initially mangled the Monty Hall problem, which I was fortunately able to get edited within a couple of hours of the article going live. Perhaps probability just isn't as interesting as I assumed it'd be, but it sure isn't as controversial!
I'm going to give this one more go, because two days from now, the topic will be dead. The updates to the banned/restricted lists will be announced on Wednesday, June 20, at the stroke of midnight. What did we see this weekend? Can Delver perform when all eyes are on it? Well, in addition to any number of PTQs and local store events, there were four premier-level Standard events in the US, and across the Pacific Ocean, a Standard Grand Prix in Manila, Philippines.
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Addressing the
Grand Prix first is easiest, because it occurred in isolation. By that, I mean that practically no one had to choose between attending GP Manila and the TCGPlayer Open 5k San Diego. With 1105 players, GP Manila is by far the largest event that happened this weekend, and it was taken down by Yuuya Watanabe, playing a decidedly retro build of UW Delver, eschewing Swords for
Runechanter's Pike, and including a
Spectral Flight in the sideboard! By shaving his deck down to only 19 lands, he found room for 23 Delver-flipping Instants and Sorceries, tuning the deck to be more aggressive and a bit less controlling than we typically see in contemporary Delver.
Rounding out the Top 8 were 3 other UW Delver decks, 2 Naya Aggro, 1 Naya Pod, and 1 Zombies. In 9th, 10th and 11th? UW Delver. 14th and 15th? More Delver. 9 of the Top 16 were UW Delver. I'm not exactly sure what to make of the Grand Prix in general, as the metagame in that part of the world is different than what we've been seeing around here. Outside of Japan, the Asia-Pacific players aren't quite as competitive as we typically see in the US. Each Top 8 competitor was asked, “What's your best Magic finish and where/when?” One player answered, “This is my first GP and GP Top 8,” while another said, “Winning a PTQ,” and a third said, “Right here, right now. I'm relatively unknown in the Magic scene in the Philippines.”
Moving on to the US, we had the TCGPlayer Open 5k in San Diego, the World Magic Cup Qualifier (WMCQ) in Baltimore, and SCG Standard Open in Indianapolis. Overshadowing them all was the SCG Invitational tournament, also in Indianapolis. This last event drew many of the best players in the country, effectively reducing the competition at the others. Due to its Standard/Legacy split, it's also somewhat difficult to analyze. For example, former Player of the Year Brad Nelson started off 4-0 with Frites, before taking a turn for the worse and missing Day 2 by 0-4ing the Legacy portion.
Nonetheless, we take what we can get, and a look at their Top 8 shows us 4 UW Delver decks, plus an intriguing twist on the archetype: Monoblue Delver. Eschewing White for 4
Inkmoth Nexus, Adam Boyd shores up the weakness to sweepers in exchange for power of
Moorland Haunt. 4
Runechanter's Pike lends legitimacy to the
Inkmoth Nexus plan, with 2
Frost Titan and 2
Ghost Quarter providing the “long game” out of the sideboard that Delver's evolved toward. It's hardly that much of a deviation; the core of 4 Delver, 4 Snapcaster, 4 Ponder, etc. is still there.
Within the Top 16? Five more UW Delver, and a UW Midrange, for a total of 11/16 decks. Additionally, Michael Jacob's Esper Midrange deck might well be close enough to count; he splashes black to good effect, but there again we see Ponder,
Snapcaster Mage,
Mana Leak,
Phantasmal Image,
Restoration Angel,
Thought Scour, and more.
Top players at this tournament included Todd Anderson, Sam Black, Matt Costa, Gerry Thompson, MTGO ringer Michael Hetrick, and previous Invitational winner Max Tietze. It did a good job of reducing the competition of the concurrently run SCG Standard Open, with Gerard Fabiano as the biggest name in the Top 16 of that one. Only two UW decks made that Top 8, with another three in the Top 16.
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On the west coast, Brian Kibler piloted Naya Pod to victory in the TCGPlayer Open 5k. Three UW Delver decks made the Top 8, with another four in the Top 16. It's been reported that Delver's running at about 40% of the field currently, so seven of sixteen looks about right for representation. That being said, I recognize exactly one name from the results, which leads me to believe the tournament was a bit softer than we might see on a less busy weekend.
Finally, there's the Baltimore WMCQ. As of Sunday afternoon, I wasn't able to find decklists, but by Patrick Chapin's word, he and Christian Calcano were the only high-profile players at that tournament. As a PTQ-sized event with a competition level only slightly higher than a PTQ, I'm not too worried about leaving it out of the analysis.
What we're seeing is that the tougher the competition, the more UW Delver seems to shine. Conversely, at lower competition levels, Delver doesn't seem to do as well. This would explain some of the disconnect between people calling for bans, and others seeing it fail at FNM and saying “Delver's fine.” The issue is that some decks are heavyweights (Valakut) with inherent power, but less reward for applied skill, while others are more nimble and customizable, rewarding tight play and metagame reads at the expense of inherent power. Sure, anyone can turn one Delver into a blind flip, and just have a hand full of
Mana Leaks and Vapor Snags, but that just doesn't happen that often. There is a reason why we hand newer players straightforward decks like burn or aggro, even though they don't perform as well at high levels.
When we boil it all down, WotC has to consider power level at the highest tiers of competition, because it doesn't matter if UW Delver is beatable when the player is making a bunch of mistakes, but whether it is when the player is playing nearly perfectly. At the same time, bans are not a desirable outcome, and they happen only for the
health of the game. If everyone's still having fun despite a deck dominating the metagame (Jund), then bans may not be necessary.
Getting back to the WMCQ, I'd have been there, but tournament organizer incompetence and greed struck again, sabotaging my plans. Rob Dougherty had invited me to come with him on a road trip, but he needed to make sure he had a babysitter for his kids. Then on
Wednesday, 2 days before we'd be traveling, we discovered that Dream Wizards had reduced the prize pool from $5,000 to only $1,000, and that the change had only been made on Tuesday. Rob and I agreed that it wasn't worthwhile, and that was that. I decided to make a bit of a stink about it on Twitter, and contacted WotC Head of Organized Play Helene Bergeot. Helene did not appear particularly pleased, and by Thursday afternoon, Dream Wizards had restored the prize pool to its originally advertised amount. By then, however, it was too late for Rob and me to make last-minute plans, and that was that.
It's simply infuriating to me that tournament organizers are so short-sighted in this respect. Granted, when the attendance for the other two WMCQs were 158 and 119, it's tough to expect that you'll
Recoup $5k in prize support. However, you win some and you lose some. When they expected 1,000-1,200 players for GP Baltimore, and instead saw 1,544, that was huge for Dream Wizards. At $40/head, they'll let Magic players hand them over 12,000 extra dollars, but when turnout might be low for an event that they did not even bother to advertise on a national scale? They try to take $4,000 away from the Magic community. This is truly shameful, and I hope that between this blatant disrespect for the community and the poor organization of GP Baltimore (20+ minute delays between rounds, every time!), Wizards of the Coast makes an example of Dream Wizards and stops rewarding bad behavior with premier-level events.
If I had attended the Baltimore event, I was prepared to attack the event from a different angle. Expecting Delver at an all-time high, and
Slagstorms at an all-time low, I was inspired by Jesse Smith to breathe new life into
Tempered Steel. Heading to
Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge for the weekly Wednesday Standard event, I had the following sleeved up:
I would not change a thing in the main deck, and it performed wonderfully, but the sideboard is probably in need of a bit of tuning. The Mountain is in there to make sure I can hit double red for
Hellrider, and comes in any time I'm boarding in
Hellrider or
Restoration Angel. It's supremely embarrassing to be holding
Restoration Angel, and not be able to respond to removal because you couldn't hit a fourth mana source.
So there I was, ready to
Crush some Delver players. First round, my opponent Phillip was playing a Monored Ramp deck that could have been straight out of Fall 2010 when people were excited about Koth. He sporte a playset of
Slagstorm,
Bonfire of the Damned,
Galvanic Blast and
Inferno Titan; I was about as dead as they come. I managed to win game one, but
Etched Champions out of the sideboard just didn't seem to want to show up, and Dispatching Mountains is just kind of embarrassing. To make matters worse, I randomly drew the bye for round 2.
I didn't keep my notes, but I recall facing off against Zombies and Naya to end the night at 3-1, all the while wondering where all the UW Delver players were. On Thursday, I drafted Avacyn Restored, snagged a
Temporal Mastery, and proceeded to go 1-2 with my Boros Humans deck with 4 Thatcher's Revolt. Paging Jackie Lee...
On Friday, I was resolved to find some UW Delver matches, and prove to myself that I'd found a good metagame decision. Round 1, I found myself across from Keith Rong, who had just Top 8'd the SCG Worcester Open with Delver. I was excited, and started shuffling up. Then it was announced that there would be a re-pair. Crap.
Instead, I sat across from John McMann, a young boy who I'd estimate to be about 10 years old. He was playing a really interesting Junk Tokens deck featuring
Essence of the Wild. Despite a mulligan to five on the draw, John gave me a good fight, and I barely squeaked by to win game one. Game two was barely a game at all. Poor guy ended up mulling to 4 on the play, and never saw a third mana source by the time I'd run him through. Politely offering a “good games,” I responded that the second one was hardly fair, and offered a third one for fun. I got him down to 6 life, but even with a
Tempered Steel on the table, he completely thrashed me. Turns out
Hero of Bladehold followed up by
Essence of the Wild is a beating!
Round 2, I faced off against Nick Leon, who was packing a burn control deck. On the play, I stole game one by landing two
Tempered Steels and smacking him with 5/5 Inkmoth Nexuses. Games two and three are a blur of Ancient Grudges, Slagstorms, and Arc Trails. The last game was almost close, but with him at 6, and me at 5, he cast
Slagstorm for “players,” and when he pointed that last
Pillar of Flame at my dome, I didn't have the
Galvanic Blast to put him down. It was approximately at this point that I began to think that perhaps I'm focusing too much on large events, and not paying attention to my local store's meta.
Round 3, I was paired against Aleksander, who was playing a UW deck that I just couldn't seem to pin down. He lead off with a
Delver of Secrets which ate an early
Dispatch, and a second Delver, followed by a
Drogskol Captain.
Feeling of Dread plus flashback kept my early guys busy. On my side, an early
Shrine of Loyal Legions was backed up by 2 copies of
Tempered Steel, and when the time came, 7 myr friends came a-calling, each a beefy 5/5.
Despite the win, I was on the play for game two. I came out of the gates with 2
Glint Hawk Idols, backed up by
Tempered Steel. Aleksander had mulled to six cards, and lead off with 2
Delver of Secrets quickly. Seemingly cursed by awful luck, those Delvers did not flip for ages, and he was reduced to churning through copies of
Feeling of Dread to stop my onslaught. By activating the Idols one at a time, I made Feeling pretty useless, and by the time the Delvers flipped, they were reduced to chump-blocking.
A miracle
Entreat the Angels stabilized the board with 3 Angel tokens, and after going tradesies with my Idols, a miracle
Terminus wiped out my pressure. A second Entreat from the hand made an Angel for 5 mana, but that was enough to secure the game.
Game three was much faster, as he was stuck with only a single colored source for the majority of the game.
Moorland Haunt proved to be a liability for him, and I pushed in with 3/3
Vault Skirges to take the match.
Round 4 was against Andrew, who was playing Naya Aggro. On the draw, I kept a hand with a Shrine,
Tempered Steel, sufficient land, and a few little guys. When he lead with
Copperline Gorge, I played
Inkmoth Nexus and passed the turn, refusing to let him get value from any removal he might have in hand. Turn 2 was Forest,
Strangleroot Geist, and I followed with Plains, Shrine. He played out a
Daybreak Ranger on Turn 3, and I trumped that with Plains,
Tempered Steel,
Memnite. Suddenly out-classed, he played
Evolving Wilds and passed the turn to transform the
Daybreak Ranger, and I responded to the trigger with a
Dispatch. He eventually got a
Garruk Relentless on board, but my Shrine burgeoned with loyal legions, and I took the game.
Game two was not particularly close, as he mulliganed to 5, missed his second land drop, and while he hit on turn 3, missed again on turn 4.
Blade Splicers on his side threatened to halt my Etched Champions, but I'd kept a hand of 3
Dispatch, and the Golems were not long for the world. Late in the game, I responded to his
Restoration Angel (targeting Blade Splicer) with that third
Dispatch to prevent another Golem, and his last-ditch Bonfire for 2 didn't do the trick as the
Etched Champions just shrugged it off.
If you're looking to beat UW Delver, I'm not sure I have any advice. If you're looking to
avoid UW Delver, play this deck, as seven rounds is clearly a large enough sample to serve as empirical evidence. In all seriousness, so long as
Slagstorms are on the wane,
Tempered Steel might well be a good choice to play. If Delver decks are weakened by the banhammer, it might be even better, as
Mana Leak targeting
Tempered Steel is easily the best play against us.
Lastly, I caught up with John McMann after round 4, and he looked pretty bummed. Despite going 2-2, he caught a phenomenally bad beat: He managed to churn out a turn 3
Essence of the Wild, only to fall victim to
Day of Judgment. “I had
Lingering Souls and
Midnight Haunting in my hand!” I thought his deck was pretty awesome, and decided to share it, with permission. He brewed it with his brother Myles, and their friend Odin “Yes that's my real name” Enzmann:
Personally, I hope that Frank Lepore decides that this deck deserves the MTGO video treatment. Nothing like “attack with
Hero of Bladehold, put two 7/6s into play attacking” to make folks ragequit!
By this time next week, we should have nearly a complete spoiler of M13 in addition to the ban list updates. It's no secret that I'm excited to put
Rancor into my
Wild Defiance Infect deck!
Until next time,
Steve Guillerm
@SteveExplosion on Twitter and MTGO
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