If you can Dodge a Wrench...

...you can probably make it through until the late rounds of a magic tournament

As "fun" as it would be, this isn't you're everyday magic tournament:

I am known for always have a strange deck idea in every format, and while that makes some people never want to test against me, as they feel their precious time is being wasted on these shotty decks, I do manage to get significant play testing in with certain people. I have noticed over the course of the 2.5 years that I have been playing Magic (started approximately M10 pre-release), I have been getting slowly better and better at making decks. As I approach post #200 (this is #195), I looked back over my past and all the decklists I posted up. Some of them used to be REALLY bad.

One example of an old deck I though was insane was UB Shape Anew. Basically, it was a Shape Anew combo deck with an Everflowing Chalice and 4 Trinket Mage in addition to Duress, Inquisition of Kozelik, Mana Leak, and of course 4 Shape Anew and 1 Blightsteel Colossus. Sounds like a good deck, right? Well the problem with the deck, and why it never did too well, is that I never had anyone "throw wrenches" at it (a term not coined by me, but instead by ADB).

What does it mean to "throw wrenches"? Force yourself to explain realistic answers to any amount of problem cards. Some decks, like Tempered Steel, don't do very well when facing down certain cards, like Ancient Grudge. Sure Tempered Steel did good at worlds, but how much success has it had since? It's a great 1 tournament deck, but it can't answer certain wrenches well enough to have lasting success. On the other hand, dealing with wrenches is like Timely Reinforcements against Red Deck: card like Shrine and Stormblood Berserker can get around those cards (Stormblood Berserker can eat all 3 soldiers and pave the way for the rest of the army).

In the case of the Shape Anew deck, Shape Anew wasn't quite fast enough to be able to compete. Shape Anew cost 4, the same as Jace, the Mind Sculptor which was getting huge in UB Control and RUG Tempo back then. In the games where I had Everflowing Chalice in my opening hand and Shape Anew on turn 3, I never lost once because it was simply 1 turn too fast. However, because it costs 4, now we have a by definition "slow combo" that needs extra protection. At the time my out was a 2x Not of the World, which was definitely hot tech, but as a 2-of I only ever used it once (though it was all I needed). Because of how much I bent my deck around the combo, I had no plan B. Just cutting the 4 Shape Anews and 1 Blightsteel for 3 Grave Titan and 2 Frost Titan would have made the deck 1 turn slower, but the cards were individually powerful and were all a backup plan for each other. If my opponent exiles that Blightsteel (Revoke Existence), then my only win condition is 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor and 4x Trinket Mage.... Not ideal for a control deck...

Compare that to this post from 2 days before Innistrad was released (3 days after the pre-release), when all the decks were still mainly all theory. The lists were rough, but looking back I realize I almost had mono-U illusions and UR Tempo! Unfortunately for me, I misunderstood where the deck should go, and I pitched the project. I thought I was making standard counter-burn instead of UR fish. I was actually prepping the deck for states, and because I couldn't consistently beat ADB (arguably the best player at Toys) I audibled to a Chapin deck with no testing and scrubbed out.

Since then, I have ramped up my playtesting more on brews, and ones that show promise I work on for longer, tweaking a card here and there, and reminding myself there are no sacred cows. One thing I look forward to now is getting wrenches thrown at my decks. The deck I'm workshopping right now is Modern Dredge. The big problem sometimes is lacking an enabler. For that, I cut cards like Tarmogoyf and Visions of Beyond and lieu of cards like Oona's Prowler and Glimpse of the Unthinkable. As I practice more and more with the deck, I notice suble things like how one of the weakest cards in the deck is the only Dredge creature (Stinkweed Imp) and maybe I play a dredge deck with no dredge cards?

I have been posting the deck on a few pro player's FB page looking for varied opinions, and I will do here too. If you have any wrenches to throw at the deck, please do (comments, E-mail, Twitter), and I will force myself to logical answers:

4x Hedron Crab
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Enclave Cryptologist
4x Fauna Shaman
4x Oona's Prowler
4x Vengevine
4x Extractor Demon
2x Skaab Ruinator
2x Sedraxis Specter
4x Stinkweed Imp

2x Glimpse of the Unthinkable

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Scalding Tarn
3x Breeding Pool
2x Watery Grave
3x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Forest
2x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard:
4x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Spell Pierce
3x Pithing Needle
2x Obstinate Baloth
2x Doom Blade

If you have any wrenches to throw, please do so! Also, the sideboard is a little loose, so I am still working on what can go there. But that's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack