|
 |
||
|
|
|||
 ONLINE STORE
SUBSCRIBERS
DRAFT UTILITY
METAPAGES
DECKS
ARTICLES
FORUMS
CARD INFO
|
Alan Comer It all started less than a week before Grand Prix Las Vegas when Scott Johns saw a listing for Gloofish on IRC in #mtgwacky. Thierry Theron (sp?) was discussing his deck, and how well had done that weekend in qualifiers. Scott, Zvi and I were the only members of Godzilla actually online at the time, so we started discussing the deck. One of the first things out of Zvi's mouth was "Where are the Winter Orbs?" We all pretty much agreed that Winter Orb belonged, and as I am really the champion of decks with low land counts in the group, I could not pass up the opportunity to test out the deck and see how it did. For those of you that haven't seen it, here is a very close listing of the original Gloofish deck: 6 Islands 4 Tropical Islands 4 Land Grant 3 Manta Riders 4 Lord of Atlantis 2 Merfolk Traders 4 Gaea's Skyfolk 2 Quirion Dryad 3 Curiosity 4 Force of Will 4 Daze 3 Foil 1 Thwart 2 Misdirection 4 Brainstorm 2 Sleight of Hand 4 Urza's Bauble 4 Gush As we went to test the deck, the swap of Urza's Bauble to Winter Orb made the most sense, and since I really wanted to know how good Dryad was, I removed 2 Skyfolk as I was concerned with the ability to get green mana and didn't want to increase the green count yet. As the Thwart seemed uncastable too often, we exchanged that card for a 4th curiosity. We then went to playtest the deck, and it immediately started showing signs of being very strong. Making sure we had green mana still seemed a primary concern, so the number of Sleight of Hands was increased to 4. While the deck was continuing to do well, various parts of the deck were still unimpressive. Manta Rider, while great if it had a curiosity on it, was pretty awful the rest of the time. As those disappeared, the Skyfolk came back up to 4 in the deck to keep the Merfolk active. Now that Manta Rider didn't need Lord of Atlantis for Islandwalk, they seemed pretty week. Testing with Scott ended here. The most enjoyable part of this testing was the fact that after Scott played Donate against me 3 times, he flat out refused to waste his time because the match-up was so hopeless for him. Thursday night, I went up to test with Frank Gilson. He threw a bunch of decks at it, most of them failing miserably. An interesting note is that a lot of Southern California players ran a BUg Shadowmage Infiltrator, Counterspells and Pernicious Deed deck in PT New Orleans. This deck never received much press as its players were relatively unknown, and its best finish was 9th. However, all 5 players finished in the top 64, so they are very fond of their deck. The results of this match-up were very even - With 8 full matches played, only one time did the person who lost the flip win. The tightness of this match-up was incredible. Nothing I did in sideboard would budge these results. Still, the testing proved useful, as it highlighted how bad Misdirection was against almost all of the decks we tested. Again, I was please with its continued performance against Donate, as Frank had lost 4 straight games before giving up. Frank asked me what would happen if I played against Sligh, and my response was that I expect to lose, but would try to wait until turn 3 to cast a Quirion Dryad, and maybe be able to grow it enough in response to them trying to kill it to burn up enough spells to have a chance. While there were still a few problems with the deck, like the fact that the Lord of Atlantis never seemed to attack, time had run out. GP Las Vegas I arrived in Las Vegas early and met up with Elf (Mike Feuell). We decided to have a quick playtest, and he proceeded to play Donate against me. I was very happy at first, as I detest Donate enough to really give it a good thrashing every time I get the chance. However, Elf promptly gave me a scare by casting his personal modification to the deck, a Nevinyrral's Disk. Now against Donate, you always want to have out 2 Winter Orbs so that they can't simply tap one with Ice and go off. This disk blew up 3 creatures and 2 Winter Orbs, leaving me extremely vulnerable. However, as bad a position as this left me in, I still pulled the game out, and my record against Donate rose to 11-0. As often happens at events where you have something really cool, you want to show somebody. However, you don't want to show the other competitors as this would give away your advantage. In times like this, I find my best outlet is talking to the judges, Tournament Organizers and Sideboard staff. Soon I had most of them shaking their head at the possibility that I would really play a 10 land deck in the GP. (I personally consider it 14, but other people seem to be willing to discount the Land Grants.) The first day of the GP went very smoothly, and I managed to play 2 Donate decks. It was in round 7 that I had my first real scare. This round, I played against Stasis. As the environment in Las Vegas was so controlish, I had made it my policy to simply cast the Winter Orb turn 2, if I went first. Whilst I didn't know what he was playing, I could see his shoulder slump when the Winter Orb hit the board, and I knew I was in good shape. The game was going well, and I had gotten him down to about 8 when I finally found out the hard way what was going on. The Winter Orb was boomeranged at the end of my turn, and the Stasis lock promptly hit the table. It was time to settle into a long game. However, it turned out not to be as bad as I had expected. Soon a second Quirion Dryad hit the table, and with the help of a couple Gushes and various Counterspells, promptly grew to the point that it was big enough to kill my opponent. Forced to sacrifice his Stasis with Claws of Gix, he untapped and tried Morphling. It was then that we realized that every counter on the new Quirion Dryad should also be on the old Quirion Dryad. The first Dryad was now up to 11/11! His Morphling promptly joined the ranks of other Morphlings that chump-blocked Quirion Dryads that weekend. In all, I got to watch 4 Morphlings get run over by the mighty Dryad.
The other interesting match-up was against PT Junk. He won game 1 pretty fast, and we sideboarded and drew our hands. I looked at a very interesting 1 land hand. I had great cards, but if my only land, a Tropical Island, got Wastelanded, I would surely lose. The strength of the hand convinced me that I could afford to lose a turn to try to help with the mana. Hoping to draw a Slight of Hand or a Brainstorm next turn to get to the second land, I decided not to drop the Tropical Island, and let it stay safe in my hand. Starting off the game by saying go startled my opponent, who then commented: "Why do I not think I am going to like how this game goes!" He played a Taiga and a Mogg Fanatic. I drew a second Tropical Island, and played the first one, relieved that I now had a second land. After 1 took a point of damage from the attacking Mogg Fanatic, my opponent dropped a second land and a River Boa. On my turn, the second land and a Quirion Dryad hit the board. Once the Mogg Fanatic and the River Boa had been declared as attackers, I decided it was time to act. I Submerged the River Boa. This drew the response of Pyroblast the Submerge, Fanatic the Dryad before the counter can hit. Perfect! I submerged the River Boa again! Now the Dryad would live, as it would get a token before the Fanatic hit it. Again came another Pyroblast. Fine, the River Boa can stay on the table, I have something better to do now. Gush, block River Boa (No islands in play now! :). My 4/4 Dryad kills your 2/1, and you don't have mana to regenerate. Very entertaining. Unfortunately, my opponent played a very good 3rd game, which saw him drop a 1st turn Treetop Village, enabling him to play the entire game without actually dropping a forest. I died with Submerges, and no way to use them. For round 13, it was time to look at the standings to see if I could draw in. In order to fail to get in with a draw, 2 matches had to go badly, and then I had to lose 4% from my tiebreakers. Much better than my odds of winning the match, so I offered the draw. My opponent's chances with a draw were lower than mine, but still good enough for him to take the draw. After much thought, he accepted my offer. It turned out that not only did the 2 matches go against me, but every opponent I had except one lost in the last round, causing my tiebreakers to plummet. Eventually I learned that I had finished 9th, on tiebreakers that failed me by less than .1%. While I was disappointed with the finish, having only lost 4 games all weekend, the sheer enjoyment of playing the deck prevented me from being too upset with this finish. In fact, I had so much fun, that when I got home, I immediately booked a flight to GP Houston. GP Sendai
The one threshold card I hadn't considered was Werebear. I made the basic mistake of thinking "I don't need 'tap to add green mana'". I was so entrenched with the fact that Werebear tapped for green mana, that when I saw Mike's deck list, I joked that it had a creature with the ability: tap to take one mana burn. As time went on, I slowly came to my senses and realized what a great addition to the deck this was. Mike's second big change was Wild Mongrel. I have heard the comment "It gets the job done" associated with this change. It is a shame that merely getting the job done is considered good enough. I disagreed with this change from the start, and still do. While there isn't a lot in it, I believe that Gaea's Skyfolk is superior for 2 reasons. First is that the Wild Mongrel does not grow the Dryad. Dryad is a very important part of the deck, and it has already been weakened by the addition of the Werebear. 2nd off, Curiosity needs a creature that will get though unblocked, and that means the Skyfolk. Mike's 3rd change I feel was very detrimental to the deck's performance. This change was Waterfront Bouncer. The problem with the Bouncer is that it is really best against MiracleGro, so it should be in the sideboard. It isn't good enough to play main. However, once Mike played it in Sendai, all MiracleGro players everywhere were condemned to also play this, or be at a big disadvantage in the mirror. GP Houston When I arrived at Houston, it was immediately obvious that MiracleGro was everywhere. I attributed its popularity to just how much everybody hates Donate. Donate has been with us for too long, and it was time for a change. A few people commented that the environment was 'all my fault'. If that's true, the fact that this new environment means that Donate is dead makes me very proud. One of the things that Houston made clear is just how young this deck is. It isn't extremely playtested. Many people had different versions, from SuperGro, which added white, to an Anti-MiracleGro version with Merfolk and Sigil of Sleep. The deck is still more art than science, not a finished product, and there is still plenty of room for creativity. Some of the things I would still like to try out are: With the addition of 4 Mana Sources (Werebears), how many Krosan Beasts are now viable, if any. How many Winter Orbs are good for the main? If Waterfront Bouncer goes away, which it could with how bad it seemed at Houston, can we play Propaganda instead? I have seen people run Quirion Druid to increase mana production and prevent the annoying Wasteland problem that sometimes occurs. (I disagree with the basic Forest that some people play.) Just how much of an improvement is SuperGro? Yes, you get Swords to Plowshares and Mystic Enforcer, but you also have to run 4 more land. I played 1 match against SuperGro while I was in Houston, which I won, but this is such a small sample size that I don't know which one is better yet.
However, in Houston the situation reversed itself. I was mana short 4 games, and only really flooded once. At this point, evidence seems to point to there being the right number of lands in the deck. On this note, I seemed to get mana screwed against William Jensen in our feature match. This isn't true. The unfortunate reality is that I made a play error on turn 1, using Brainstorm and Land Grant to shuffle away an extra land, leaving me very vulnerable to Wasteland. When "Baby Huey" produced the Wasteland, I paid dearly for my mistake. All in all, Houston was a lot of fun. It was ironic that I randomly picked Josh Smith vs. Alex Shwartzman as the Top 8 match to cover. As I watched this match-up, I was overcome with deja vu. As I often looked at Alex's hand for the beginning of the match, I would think back to those games I played against Frank Gilson. While the decks had changed, the premise had not. Get down a Pernicious Deed or a Powder Keg, you win - the problem is getting them on the table in the first place, and that's where the battle lies. Shadowmage Infiltrator helps you draw these cards, Counterspells helps them hit the table. Winter Orb is still a very big threat to help keep them away. The Future: Now that Josh Smith has shown the world how to beat MiracleGro, it is a shame that the extended season is coming to a close. This season has been the most enjoyable extended season I have ever played, mostly due to 2 things. The fun I had in Las Vegas, and the utter annihilation of Donate. I personally will miss this season, and I am very disappointed that we will not see it evolve to its logical conclusion. Of course, as seasons get closer to perfection, they tend to get boring, with less and less innovation happening. Maybe it is just better to smile and watch the curtain close on this very successful run for Extended. - Alan Comer No portion of this web site may be used in any way without expressed written consent. All rights reserved. Magic the Gathering and it's respective properties are copyright Wizards of the Coast. Privacy Policy |
  
|
Price Guides / Spoilers
