Decklist 8/19/2012

How excited do you think I was to see a number of new U/G Delver decklists pop up over the last week?  If your answer was anything but "finding out that Peter Jackson is doing 'The Hobbit' or "Lucas' estate turned VII over to Nolan" than you were way off.  Considering that I posted my Potting Soil decklist almost a month ago, I am ecstatic that the community is finally coming around to it.

Even better, it seems that people are still building it wrong.  I mean, seriously, the deck can consistently kill on turn 4 and has a reasonable turn 3, and you are adding more lands and Talrand?  Why?  If you can't aggro kill early, you already have enough control, and more lands plus a "late game" is the worst plan here since 'Jack and Jill' was green lighted.

Roughly comparable to Todd Anderson's U/G Delver list.

So, to help the embattled masses, who live in fear of needing 2/2 flying Drakes when you can have a 7/7 ground-pounding super plant on turn 3 instead, here is the updated version of "Potting Soil".

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Quirion Dryad

12 Creatures

4 Vapor Snag
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Gut Shot
3 Mutagenic Growth
4 Mental Misstep
4 Mana Leak
3 Apostle's Blessing
4 Ponder

29 Spells

4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Cavern of Souls
7 Island
3 Forest

18 Land

And for those of you wondering, there are several thousand combinations of hands/draw phases that get you a turn 4 kill, but here is an example of the turn 3 for the non-believers:

Example 1:
Dryad, Delver, Gut Shot, Probe, Gut Shot, Harbor, Island.

Turn 1: Island, Delver. Pass.
Turn 2: Reveal Ponder. Attack for 3. Play Harbor, cast Dryad. (Opponent 17). Probe twice, drawing Snapcaster and Island. (3/3 Dryad)
Turn 3: Draw Mutagenic Growth. Play Island and cast Ponder (4/4). Ponder finds Probe.  Probe into land. (5/5) Snapcaster Probe and draw Mutagenic Growth. (7/7) Gut Shot the opponent twice (15 life, Dryad is 9/9). Mutagenic Growth the Dryad twice.  Dryad is 13/13 and Delver is 3/2, attack for 16. 

I threw in a blank to make sure it doesn't seem like the ridiculous run-goods all-day/every day, but there are other ways to get to turn 3 with a dead opponent.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed this look at the deck, and don't stop believing.

A Double, Neat -- 7/29/2012

* As a long time Twins fan and an even longer-suffering Cubs fan I woke up dismayed to learn that Francisco Liriano has been traded to the hated South Siders.  Ever since his sterling rookie performance that had him at 12-3 with a sub 3.00 ERA to start the season, Frisco has been one of my favorite pitchers to watch.  His slider is a brutal, in-your-face roundhouse that makes the greatest hitters of a generation look like Little Leaguers.  Sadly, throwing it is apparently the equivalent to thrusting your arm in a garbage disposal, for all the havoc it has wreaked on his elbow.  So he heads to the White Sox, where, undoubtedly, he will immediately transform into the top-of-the-rotation ace he was always supposed to be, thus burying my hopes and dreams in one silky, sinking motion.

This isn't so much a pitch as it is a giant f-you to whoever the victim standing in the box may be.

* Kevin Durant demonstrated why, in a game of 5 on 5, he is the best player in the NBA right now, by demolishing France to the tune of 22 points while sitting most of the fourth quarter.  When asked how the reigning NBA champions could have beaten the Dynamic Duo of Westbrook and Durant, the star French player, Tony Parker could only shake his head.  "Well, sometimes you are in a club hanging with Drizzy and bottles start flying, and sometimes David Stern gets pissed off at Cleveland, it's just how it goes," he didn't explain.

* As far as the Magic world is concerned, M13 is shaping up to be a ridiculously competitive, even, and entertaining format.  In fact, the winner of Grand Prix: Shanghai played only two rares in his Top 8 dominating build of red/black aggro.  Of course, he did have two Arms Dealers..

If you have two of these, Krenko, and two Krenko's Command, and you lose?  Richard Garfield appears to take your Magic playing privileges away.

Double-Faced Spells: Random MtG Designs

While my Photoshop skills hover between none at all and occasional clone-stamping, I've still decided to attempt sharing some of my Magic: the Gathering, card designs, including some that I submitted back in the "You Make the Card" days (this really needs to come back, for the record).

The format is Card Name//Casting Cost//Type//Text Box//P/T or Loyalty, if applicable.


Vessel of Drought//3//Artifact//Non-colorless mana cannot be used to pay the colorless costs of spells or abilities.


Carragon, the Wandering Sage//XG//Planeswalker-Carragon//~this~ enters the battlefield with X loyalty. -1: Search your library for a land and put it on the battlefield tapped. -3: Search your library for a creature, reveal it, then put it onto the battlefield tapped. -5: Exile the top half of your library rounded up. All permanents exiled this way enter the battlefield tapped.

Feral Devourer//B//Creature-Horror//If ~this~ would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, it enters the battlefield instead.  When ~this~ enters the battlefield, if you did not play it from your hand, you lose the game.//7/7

Double-faced spells are formatted the same, the "night" side of the card follows //////


Fizzle//UU//Instant//When you play ~this~, if it is the first spell you've played this turn, transform it.  Counter target spell.//////
Frazzle//~//Instant//Counter target spell unless it's controller pays 2.

Burn//R//Instant//When you play ~this~, if it is the first spell you've played this turn, transform it.  ~this~ deals 4 damage to target creature or player.//////
Blister//~//Instant//~this~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

Banish//BB//Instant//When you play ~this~, if it is the first spell you've played this turn, transform it.  Exile target planeswalker, creature, or land.//////
Bury//~//Instant//Destroy target non-black creature.

Restore//2G//Instant//When you play ~this~, if it is the first spell you've played this turn, transform it. Return target card from your graveyard to your hand. Exile ~this~.//////
Renew//~//Instant//Untap all permanents you control. Exile ~this~.

Pacify//W//Instant//When you play ~this~, if it is the first spell you've played this turn, transform it.  Target creature cannot attack or block. (The creature remains pacified until it leaves the battlefield or the game ends)./////
Pardon//Instant//Untap target attacking creature and remove it from combat.

And some unrealistic designs that seem mildly entertaining.

 Impenetrable Battlements//3WW//Creature-Wall//Defender. 0: ~this~ gets +0/+1 until end of turn. Miracle: WW.//0/4

Fissure Behemoth//4RR//Creature-Beast//Haste. Trample. When ~this~ enters the battlefield, destroy target land. Miracle: RRR//5/1

Slumbering Wurm//5GG//Creature-Wurm//Trample.  3GG: Regenerate ~this~. ~this~ gets +6/+6 until end of turn. Miracle: GGGGG.//8/8

Banworthy Sprite//2U//Creature--Fairie//Flash. Flying. Miracle: U.//3/2

Gravetender Revenant//1BB//Creature--Spirit//Flying. When ~this~ enters the battlefield, if it was played with it's Miracle cost, target player sacrifices a creature and you may return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield.  Miracle: 4BB.//3/2

Tip of the Day #5: "Why Delver is a Banana Deck"

For those of you living under a muggle rock these days, there is a bit of a debate growing about deck classification.  If you are trying to improve your game, knowing your plan is ridiculously important, for those of you who question why deck classification even matters.

Over the whole argument, one thing that stands out to me is that everyone seems to be ignoring one of Adrian Sullivan's most important points.  In their haste to mark their own stamp on Magic theory, several writers are forgetting the point of theory in the first place.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Adrian's tweet to quote directly, but he said, approximately, "What you are doing when you choose to classify Delver as Aggro is not theory, it's empiricism."  In the writer's mind, Delver is Aggro, because what he calls Aggro, is actually something else entirely.  That's empirical thought, and the danger is that empiricism cannot be taught.  Theory succeeds only because it is codified terms with defined parameters that can be passed on.

When you have a public platform such as a webpage or article series, it is crucial that you do not fall into the trap of attempting to communicate your empirical thoughts.  While your strategy may be sound, it will fail for someone who does not properly integrate your "theory" with existing theory.  And they have practically no way of knowing whether or not they need to do so.

Magic continues to evolve, and there is a need to update the fundamental theories we use to operate our strategies.  But that update needs to come in terms of logical interpretations that expand or extend the current model, not reconfigure it completely.  

That is the tip of the day.

Tip of the Day #4: "Playing Around 'It'"

Players serious about developing their game eventually become obsessed with "Jedi mind tricks", bluffs, and representation on both their side of the table and their opponent's.  What I want to address is the minor fact that for every Mike Long combo-ing off without a win condition, or Zach Hall foiling Mike Flores' dastardly plans with a well-timed "#showme", there are hundreds of thousands of examples of completely ineffective angle shots.

Being able to rationally determine the likelihood of a specific card in your opponent's hand is a valuable tool.  But I prefer the golf bag analogy.  When it comes to our game, you have many different skills and abilities that you need to develop.  Understanding card advantage, proper role identification, card evaluation, and careful attention are all clubs in your golf bag.  The point of the game of golf, though, is not to use every club on every hole.  You want to get there in as few strokes as possible, which isn't going to happen if you spend time trying to convince yourself a flop shot over a towering pine tree with your new lob wedge is the right play.

In Magic, you will encounter many situations where your opponent could ostensibly have something in their hand which will affect your board position or plays.  In fact, those situations come about literally every turn.  


I used to enormously enjoy the old Magic Academy and The Play's the Thing series and other articles that focused on the same sorts of things.  When someone whose opinion I respect very highly is explaining that playing a Razorverge Thicket instead of a Forest before casting Llanowar Elves is just like taking a baby cat outside and kicking it against an electric fence because you want them to believe you do not have access to white, I try very hard to pay attention, but, ultimately, not every play on every turn is as crucial as you want to believe it is.

To summarize my occasionally incoherent thoughts on this subject, I'll say that I very rarely play around Rebuke in DII drafts.  If my opponent has it, it isn't going any where.  Whether I attack this turn or six turns from now, I'm going to lose a guy to it.  If it's early in the game, I can be fairly certain that whatever I'm attacking with is going to be worth less than the better cards I'll have access to later.

In conclusion, the pro tip of the day that I'm referring to is "In the early game, play as though they don't have it, and in the late game, play as though they do."  I'm merely adding that in most actual situations, it doesn't matter either way.

Tip of the Day #3

Quick note: For fans disappointed in the lack of longer form content, I hear you, and I have a few things in the works that I think you will really enjoy.  In the meantime, I will be posting another edition of The Road this week, and a writing article should appear on Sunday or Monday.


In the last TotD, I focused on your gameplan when it comes to selecting a deck and executing that plan when it comes time to game at a major tournament (or even FNM, for that matter).  One step I mostly left out was practice, and it's critical that you don't do the same.  Practice is important the way that having air to breathe is important.

If you're still alive then you appreciate what I'm saying.  One thing, I consider practice to be different from playesting.  You do practice while you playtest, but playtesting should also incorporate metagame considerations and developing strategies against specific decks.  When I practice, I'm generating sample hands and figuring out how the starting seven fits into my gameplan.  I even like to think out games in my head, visualizing the action and simulating cards drawn.  If you are thinking about how stupid that sounds, think about how you would imagine a game playing out with your deck.  You'd probably draw a pretty good hand, right?  And more than likely you'd be mise-ing like Budde in his prime, true?

Well, the reason this wish-fulfillment is useful is that it helps you recognize what the best hands for your deck are, which should lead to better mulligan decisions, and help you identify the optimal lines of play for your particular 75.

Speaking of mulligans...

Tip of the Day #2

One mistake that a lot of players make when they start transitioning to the semi-pro and pro-level is to give in to the fish-out-of-water feeling that accompanies sitting down at a Grand Prix for the first time.  Whether Round Four comes along and you find yourself matched up against a future Hall of Famer, or whether the first hand you draw for the tournament is six lands and a five-drop, whatever the situation, you have to clear your mind and, calm down, and focus on what you need to do.

Execute your gameplan.  Of course, that means you have to have a gameplan, so if you don't, well, chalk that up to mistake number two.  It is absolutely amazing how few people can articulate what it is that their deck is supposed to do.  As an example, let's look at what happens when someone picks up Red Deck Wins for a PTQ.

They might have a short answer to the question about their gameplan, something like, "My goal is to deal 20 damage as fast as possible with creatures and burn spells."  Even that limited plan is better than nothing, but if you really want to be playing the deck as well as it can be played, you should be able to explain to your friends and teammates that your plan is to

                  1) Apply early pressure with a combination of one and two drop creatures.
                  2) Control the board using direct damage and by economically trading for value in combat.
                  3) Use more powerful cards to craft an end-game involving a flurry of direct damage, or a massive  
                      swing with powered up creatures.

If it sounds like common sense, it is, and this tip isn't meant for you, but you would be surprised by how often this minor detail gets overlooked.  Mike Flores has written several articles about pre-visualization and the importance of your gameplan, and it never hurts to review the foundations that the rest of your game is built on.

Tip of the Day #1

Reid Duke's win at Grand Prix: Nashville was a wild ride for everyone but the eventual victor.  The new draft format has proven to be a tough nut to crack.  Wizards has been pushing card quality since Shards of Alara, and the new reality is that your drafts are going to play more and more like Constructed matches.  To that end, our first tip comes from Reid's interview with Rich Hagon.

Adjust for real life play by becoming more aware of your draft.  


Reid discussed the transition from online grinding to success at major tournaments, noting especially that the fact that MTGO tracks your picks and can even display your curve can make for awkward situations in live drafting.

Understanding the role that different options can play in your deck can be the difference between a 3-0 or 2-1 and a 1-2 performance.  Practice making the right decision in the moment, but don't fall into the trap of missing out on a curve-filling choice because you are attracted to the shiny rare or uncommon.

Silverchase Fox is probably worse than Smite the Monstrous, but if you've already filled your four-drop slot with Inquisitors, Mausoleum Guards, and Sentries, you might need the body.  Similarly, if your deck is comprised mostly of token generators, having the Fox might get you out of a sticky situation when you face down a surprise Curse of Death's Hold.

To re-iterate, Reid Duke credited his ability to adjust to memorizing the relevant cards in a given draft as one of the most important steps he took in becoming a more complete player.  You can do the same.

Magic's Hole Cards: 5 Ways to Improve Video Coverage

If you're anything like me, you spent the weekend of Pro Tour: Dark Ascension ravenously devouring the delicious non-stop coverage that made you feel almost as if you were two thousand miles away and not on a beach.  And if you were, you might be wondering, why does this guy think the coverage needs improvement, because it was actually that awesome.

Almost this awesome.

Well, there might be one thing better than watching fantastic video of your favorite players making the wrong blocks that you would never in a million years have made on a twitchy Internet feed.  That would be watching on glorious High Definition delivered straight out of your over-priced 3-D television.

Imagine this, but in your living room.  In three dimensions.

Any more dimensions would be too awesome to comprehend/

And that could happen.  But it won't.  Not yet.  As Patrick Chapin discussed during a recent SCG Open event, Magic won't make it back to ESPN until there is a way for Joe Plumber, Joe Six-Pack, and the seven other people who would have voted for Sarah Palin to quickly get into the game and devise drinking competitions and side-bets.

With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for how to make a good thing even better.  None of them involve laser beams, unfortunately.

Because you know you wanted it.

Ron "Squee" Jeremy the Barbarian

Grand Prix: Indianapolis Tournament Organizer Pastimes have found themselves in a bit of a bind over their recent promotion of BDSM Magic-gear.  Namely, at least five people were incredibly offended by the art on the playmats that were intended to be handed out at the GP.  Thanks to the diligent work of various eyes on Twitter, the mats are apparently headed for wherever they send the "We Won the Super Bowl" t-shirts made for the team that actually, cough, lost the game.

"You said, licking, right?  Right?!"

While I usually prefer hiding in the corner of the Twitterverse whenever someone starts talking about a subject that involves an issue where I am part of the unwanted majority, in this case, I'm fine with adding my own opinion to the largely ignorable conversation.

Electrifying: A MTG Article by Ben Snyder

Electrifying

So last time I ran through a few ideas I had for the shape of post-Innistrad standard.  One thing that I definitely wasn’t expecting was the speed at which the metagame shifts now as opposed to ten years ago.  While I compulsively devour every midnight update of SCG and ChannelFireball, it’s different when you are actively trying to play in the new environments.

With that in mind, I’m going to try and publish an article every week, especially once Innistrad is online and I can actually playtest more than ten or fifteen games every five days.  For those of you who don’t remember, or haven’t bothered to check out my archives from the various websites, I take playtesting seriously.  I do not like small sample sizes.  But now, I think, I’ll have to accept that it isn’t possible to spend three to six months tinkering with a deck any more as the metagame will just evolve around it while you try and do so.