Hello everyone! In Standard recently, I have been playing a tribal Werewolves midrange deck that establishes control with Daybreak Ranger before dealing 30+ damage in one turn with a Moonmist flipping over a Mayor of Avabruck, an Instigator Gang, and any dude for a surprise victory. The deck is still getting tweaked and tuned, but that’s not the centerpiece of today’s topic, merely it inspired something I have only recently been putting a lot of thought into.
Magic is awesome, we all know that, but the reason it is awesome is because every single card is unique. Playing blackjack is fun for a little bit, but you’re playing the same game endlessly trying to claw out a few dollars. On the other hand, whenever you look at a Magic board the cards in play could be of completely different value than in the very next game based on how they interact with everything else.
Where am I going with all this? Why is it important to also mention that I played against 3 Tempered Steel decks in 5 rounds this last FNM? Well having 3 Ancient Grudge in my sideboard helped me out a lot, but I had to ask myself, isn’t Naturalize just better?
Conventional card advantage would scream NO! After all, Tempered Steel is an ARTIFACT deck, so Ancient Grudge is a very simple 2-for-1 that puts us far ahead. However, what if we looked at this deck from a different angle? Instead of looking at it as an artifact aggro deck, consider it an artifact combo deck. Without the card Tempered Steel itself, the deck doesn’t do much. Games with Steel are completely different from games without. Have you ever heard that before? Maybe with cards like Goblin Guide and Birthing Pod?
Once we decide that Tempered Steel is a combo deck, we see why Naturalize is probably better than Ancient Grudge. If we grudge away all of their creatures, the deck is loaded with outs: 0 mana Wild Nacatls, 1 mana mini-Baneslayers, 2 mana wrath-proof Air Elementals, lands that kill in 3 turns, etc. If we Naturalize their Tempered Steel, then they are back to playing cards for what they paid for (hint: if you pay 0-1 mana for a creature, don’t expect to actually kill your opponent with it).
This was my starting point of thinking about analyzing decks from a new angle: enablers and action. The most extreme example of this I could think of was Necro-Donate aka Trix. In case you don’t know about this deck, it is a very old combo deck that would use Necropotence as a draw engine and you would cast Donate on your Illusions of Grandeur and soon your opponent would not be able to pay the cumulative upkeep cost and they would die. The most important card of this deck was not Illusions of Grandeur or Donate, but rather Necropotence. With Necropotence, you would be able to get so far ahead of your opponent that you can force through the combo without worry of your opponent having answers because you always have more.
Bringing things back to standard, another deck that has many combo elements to it is Wolf Run Ramp. The traditional problem with Ramp decks is they have a series of cards that need to be cast in the proper order or else things don’t go too well for them - play some Rampant Growths or Spheres, then follow it up with Titans and other fatties until they die. Back in the days of Psychatog, players would counter each other’s draw spells to prevent the other from gaining enough cards advantage to close out the game. In the same way, countering the ramp spells goes a long way towards breaking up the combo deck that is Wolf Run Ramp.
Here’s one last example, but this is from a completely different angle. My sideboard plan when I’m playing white against storm in Legacy: Stony Silence. Wait, what? Yes, Stony Silence actually tears a huge hole into the side of Storm’s plan. All of a sudden the deck can no longer reliably cast Infernal Tutor, and casting Ad Nauseam becomes very risky as the number of cards they can get went from 12-16 (Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox) to less than 8 because a few were probably used in the casting of the Ad Nauseam. I could go into Legacy side boarding in more detail, but Stony Silence is awesome against storm because it is also awesome against other decks like Affinity, so it is very flexible to combat Legacy’s very diverse metagame.
What started out as a thought regarding my Tempered Steel matchup with my Werewolves deck transformed into a new way of thinking about side boarding and how decks function from the ground up. By looking at decks through the lens of identifying and tactfully neutralizing the enablers in a deck, it’s amazing to see how quickly seemingly horrific or complicated matchups turn around!
That’s all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!
Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
Magic is awesome, we all know that, but the reason it is awesome is because every single card is unique. Playing blackjack is fun for a little bit, but you’re playing the same game endlessly trying to claw out a few dollars. On the other hand, whenever you look at a Magic board the cards in play could be of completely different value than in the very next game based on how they interact with everything else.
Where am I going with all this? Why is it important to also mention that I played against 3 Tempered Steel decks in 5 rounds this last FNM? Well having 3 Ancient Grudge in my sideboard helped me out a lot, but I had to ask myself, isn’t Naturalize just better?
Conventional card advantage would scream NO! After all, Tempered Steel is an ARTIFACT deck, so Ancient Grudge is a very simple 2-for-1 that puts us far ahead. However, what if we looked at this deck from a different angle? Instead of looking at it as an artifact aggro deck, consider it an artifact combo deck. Without the card Tempered Steel itself, the deck doesn’t do much. Games with Steel are completely different from games without. Have you ever heard that before? Maybe with cards like Goblin Guide and Birthing Pod?
Once we decide that Tempered Steel is a combo deck, we see why Naturalize is probably better than Ancient Grudge. If we grudge away all of their creatures, the deck is loaded with outs: 0 mana Wild Nacatls, 1 mana mini-Baneslayers, 2 mana wrath-proof Air Elementals, lands that kill in 3 turns, etc. If we Naturalize their Tempered Steel, then they are back to playing cards for what they paid for (hint: if you pay 0-1 mana for a creature, don’t expect to actually kill your opponent with it).
This was my starting point of thinking about analyzing decks from a new angle: enablers and action. The most extreme example of this I could think of was Necro-Donate aka Trix. In case you don’t know about this deck, it is a very old combo deck that would use Necropotence as a draw engine and you would cast Donate on your Illusions of Grandeur and soon your opponent would not be able to pay the cumulative upkeep cost and they would die. The most important card of this deck was not Illusions of Grandeur or Donate, but rather Necropotence. With Necropotence, you would be able to get so far ahead of your opponent that you can force through the combo without worry of your opponent having answers because you always have more.
Bringing things back to standard, another deck that has many combo elements to it is Wolf Run Ramp. The traditional problem with Ramp decks is they have a series of cards that need to be cast in the proper order or else things don’t go too well for them - play some Rampant Growths or Spheres, then follow it up with Titans and other fatties until they die. Back in the days of Psychatog, players would counter each other’s draw spells to prevent the other from gaining enough cards advantage to close out the game. In the same way, countering the ramp spells goes a long way towards breaking up the combo deck that is Wolf Run Ramp.
Here’s one last example, but this is from a completely different angle. My sideboard plan when I’m playing white against storm in Legacy: Stony Silence. Wait, what? Yes, Stony Silence actually tears a huge hole into the side of Storm’s plan. All of a sudden the deck can no longer reliably cast Infernal Tutor, and casting Ad Nauseam becomes very risky as the number of cards they can get went from 12-16 (Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox) to less than 8 because a few were probably used in the casting of the Ad Nauseam. I could go into Legacy side boarding in more detail, but Stony Silence is awesome against storm because it is also awesome against other decks like Affinity, so it is very flexible to combat Legacy’s very diverse metagame.
What started out as a thought regarding my Tempered Steel matchup with my Werewolves deck transformed into a new way of thinking about side boarding and how decks function from the ground up. By looking at decks through the lens of identifying and tactfully neutralizing the enablers in a deck, it’s amazing to see how quickly seemingly horrific or complicated matchups turn around!
That’s all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!
Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo
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