I’m going to start this off with a claim that you might think is bold:
When you sleeve up a deck for a tournament, it reflects upon who you are. Or maybe I have it backwards, and people become more like the decks they play over a long period. Or maybe it’s not causal, but correlated, that some external factor causes both how people act and live their lives, and what decks they bring to a tournament that they care about. But definitely when all else is equal, people will choose decks that closely mesh with what kind of a person they are.
Have you noticed how some people always play the same kind of decks?
Surely you have seen these people. The guy who is always on Mono-Red. The person who “doesn’t play net-decks” (delivered with a scoff, for good measure) and shows up with some slow-ish midrange deck that probably folds to a [card]Day of Judgment[/card]. The unbelievably-irritating-oh-my-god-hurry-up-we-aren’t-going-to-finish-the-damn-round-and-if-your-turn-takes-10-more-seconds-I-am-calling-a-judge-for-slow-play-and-no-I-don’t-care-if-we-are-at-an-FNM guy who always brings an unbelievably slow control deck, plays slowly, and is destined to be the all-star of the draw bracket. The guy who always shows up with a stock list of the deck that won the most recent SCG Open, and is surprised when you beat him because you actually thought for yourself (!) and changed 5 cards to help with the mirror. The guy who foils out an entire deck for FNM, and plays like a donkey.
“The first step to discovering and understanding any fundamental truth is noticing a pattern.”
Don’t you find it odd that these patterns emerge? I did. I turned my observations around on myself, and found that, all else being equal, I tend to favour control decks.
Why? That question raised further questions – why does anyone gravitate towards a given deck? Is it simply a question of “playing to your strength” in play-style? I know many people who are versatile and might play mono-red one week and blue-black control the next. When the metagame shifts, they shift too. (I could tell season-long stories about people that I know, as they adapted to play “the best deck” week after week – but ultimately if you don’t know them you would likely be extremely bored by this) This too is a pattern, and has nothing to do with play-style. I have a high degree of respect for people who can pilot all archetypes equally well, and I feel a small amount of jealousy – because when the best deck in the room is Red Deck Wins, I won’t be able to pilot it well enough to play at the level I expect myself to play at. What does that say about these ‘super-players’, who pilot all different archetypes at the same proficiency level? What does that say about me?
Let me tell you why I play control.
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Here are some of the reasons I play control:
A control deck usually presents many wildly different lines of play every turn. This gives me more choices, which I like. When I make the wrong choice, and lose the game, it is usually very easy to trace it back to a decision I made. This allows me to update my understanding of the game, and hopefully avoid that mistake in the future. (spoiler alert: I will probably make that same mistake again, since I’m not nearly as smart as I think I am*)
The longer a game goes, the more I am favoured. I like this because the odds of me winning increase over time. I hate the opposite. There is actually a fable which teaches small children to value this kind of progress and long term success. It is called the Tortoise and the Hare. (OK that’s a bit loose, I agree, in the fable the Hare loses because he takes his eye off the prize and takes a nap. But the better moral is that slow and steady wins the race)
Since control decks typically involve ways to draw cards or tutor for things, any highly situational cards are seen by me more often, and these high-impact cards are a powerful tool to have. I believe it was Flores who coined the term “deck velocity” which measures how fast you dig through your deck and see extra cards (beyond the one from your draw step). Deck velocity and card selection smooth your draws, which means in theory you probably mulligan less. (I fully admit mulliganing is a weak area in my game, but it stands to reason that the more cards you see, the less often you miss land drops and are colour screwed)
Control decks get to play sweepers, which generate card advantage. Once upon a time, around the time the term “card advantage” was coined, this was the holy doctrine of good play – when you trade cards for more of their cards, eventually you have cards and they don’t, and at that point winning should be easy. Nowadays, Wizards has been very good about printing cards which help players seize early tempo and close out games before the “card advantage strategy” can catch up, and unfortunately the ‘stock’ of these sweepers is close to its all time low. I still love playing them, though.
Control decks get to play a higher concentration of instants; instants tend to be answers, not threats. Playing more instants means there is a small informational asymmetry to exploit. (Explanation: we have each played a card but I got to see what my opponent was doing first. In theory that means I can use my play to generate even more card and board advantage) Manoeuvring around priority and the stack, cost vs. effect, the exact steps of the turn – this is a strength of mine, and a large part of why I became a level 1 Judge.
Control decks get to play some of the coolest spells in the game. Richard Garfield designed this game (well!) so that the bigger and more powerful effects cost more mana. Have you ever cast a Cruel Ultimatum? Simply awesome.
In theory, a control deck always has “outs”, because it tends to be a deck packed with answers. I can’t stand it when I know I am drawing dead.
I’m cutting this list off since I could in fact go on. I intentionally didn’t reference counter-spells or Blue specifically – neither of these are necessary for a control deck. (although they do tend to make the control decks better)
* None of us are. http://www.youarenotsosmart.com
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By this point, you the reader are probably saying, “that’s very nice for you, but why should I care?” Also, “you’ve just told us what you like, what does ‘who you are’ have to do with it?”
Here’s why you should care: with reasonable success, I can talk to someone at the beginning of a match, and look at how they shuffle, what they are wearing, how they act, etc. – and guess what deck or kind of deck they are playing.
If I know the person, my success rate goes up.
Please, try it for yourself. Go to an FNM at your local store (something I should do more, with the probably-slightly-wrong ratio of Planeswalker Points they grant) and before your match starts: make a guess about what your opponent is playing.
Who are they? A budget player? That gives you information. Someone who only plays semi-regularly? That gives you information. What were they playing the last time you played them, and did they seem comfortable? What did they trade for 2 weeks ago? How are they dressed? What is their profession? What are their mannerisms? Have they played more brews or net-decks in the past? What is their player psychographic? (Johnny, Timmy, or Spike) Do they foil out their decks? Do they own their own cards or are they a ‘chronic borrower’? All these traits give small bits of information, which in and of themselves are not enough to predict their deck selection. BUT! When taken together, a pattern can emerge.
And when that happens, you can ascend.
When you’re playing against Captain Slow, you can keep that hand that’s a little light on early action but has powerful card draw and counter spells. When you’re playing against Mr. Red, you mull that same hand, but keep a hand with no meaningful late game since your goal is now simply to get to that late game. Against Senor Shiny, who foils out his entire deck every season (I never understood why you would foil out a deck for a rotating format – are you trying to show us how good of a trader you are?) you’re probably looking at some deck featuring one of the marquee planeswalkers of the format, as well as expensive spells (not mana cost, I mean secondary market value).
And that edge you can gain puts you above the rest. As competitive players, these small edges are our lifeblood.
Please understand I am not saying gamble wantonly with opening hands based on a hunch! All I am saying is there are some opening hands where you are on the fence about whether to keep or to mulligan. In that situation, sometimes you have to go with your gut. And sometimes, if you’re paying attention, your brain can lend a hand.
And how does this correlate with who I am? I am an Engineer by profession. I value data and information, which I use to model an understanding of the world around me. Then I use any and all available tools to shape the world. That is the core of engineering: taking the powerful tools of math and science and doing something meaningful with it in the real world. It is the reason you learn math and science in school: because if you understand it and harness it properly, you literally can do anything. You can CONTROL the world around you. (sorry, had to put that last line there)
States!
Sorry, Provincials!
— The 2011s. Whatever.
I played Solar Flare, a control deck. I really hope you, the reader aren’t that surprised.
Why not Blue-Black Control? I didn’t have a good list and I didn’t think the deck was quite there yet, I didn’t like it against Mono-Red or [card]Tempered Steel[/card] or [card]Birthing Pod[/card]. That deck was one Preordain-type card away from being straight-up the best. Dan Lanthier brewed up a “Midnight List” that performed very well (he got 3rd), if I had seen it earlier in advance I might have switched to it (I don’t like audibles). I feel like White has the most powerful sideboard answers in the format right now, plus White is tied for my favourite colour.
I had a long list of cards I wanted in the sideboard. After a rather harsh amount of cuts, I had the sideboard down to 16 cards. I couldn’t make any cuts, so I figured, why not just play a 16 card sideboard?
[deck title=Johnathan Bentley – 16 Card Sideboard]
[Lands]
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
3 Glacial Fortress
2 Seachrome Coast
5 Island
3 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
2 Sun Titan
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Grave Titan
3 Snapcaster Mage
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Mana Leak
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Think Twice
2 Unburial Rites
2 Day of Judgment
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Dissipate
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Doom Blade
1 Celestial Purge
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Gideon Jura
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Dismember
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Spellskite
2 Revoke Existence
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Dissipate
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Flashfreeze
2 Nihil Spellbomb
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
You may notice this list contains a 15 card sideboard (because I’m not an idiot) (debatable – after all I did register a 61 card deck). Yes, I added one card to the maindeck that was originally a sideboard card – [card]Celestial Purge[/card]. No, I didn’t regret it at all. In retrospect, maybe I should have also added a land, but it was hard enough registering 76, let alone 77.
The way I see Standard right now (feel free to disagree) is that we have 4 Tier One decks in the format, maybe 5 or 6 depending on what you consider Tier 1:
Mono Red (insanely strong, I feel like it has somehow gotten better after losing Bolt…?) Also [card]Tempered Steel[/card] is kind of like Mono Red’s brother: somewhat different, but very much alike, only way more vulnerable to hate right now.
Wolf-Run-Ramp (Most of these Mono-Green decks are built similarly)
Solar Flare
Blue-Based “Pure Control“, either UW or UB, I group them together by strategy
maybe also Birthing Pod and Blue-White Blade.
What I find interesting is that they are all relatively strong choices that don’t really have overlapping strategies:
Mono-R: Win right now
Wolf-Run-Ramp: Ramp my mana, play fatties. If that doesn’t work, I am also a land-based combo deck with a reasonably fast clock. Deal with that or die!
Solar Flare: Stall a couple of turns, then reanimate fatties. Also I can slip into the control role when needed, but I’d rather be landing haymakers.
Blue Control. First I counter your spells, and use my removal to create board parity, all the while gaining card advantage. Then you slump in your chair. Then I win.
UW Blade: I have hexproof threats that present a pretty solid clock. Also I have counter spells! Also I hear [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] is good, so I maximize its use.
Birthing Pod decks: I play the best tutor in the format! I have solid silver bullets, and some mana ramp to accelerate my board development. When I don’t have [card]Birthing Pod[/card] I don’t do a lot, though. Also a little soft to [card]Day of Judgment[/card]. (but not too bad since each creature should generate a little value right away)
This variation in strategy makes creating a sideboard for a control deck minorly infuriating, or at the very least jam-packed with singleton copies of cards.
Aside: [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] increases the impact of these singleton spells, since you get 2 of them, and it’s amazing. I believe there are enough instants and sorceries in Solar Flare to play Snapcasters profitably. After you chump block with them, you can use [card]Sun Titan[/card] to continue to Snapcaster more removal and [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card], and generate even more advantage. I would never cut them entirely, although I might cut one to go down to 2.
Control decks need to have specific answers, which is why they’re usually not so great right near the beginning of a format.
“There are wrong answers, but there are no wrong threats.” – Dave Price
This was what made creating my sideboard so difficult. A cleverer mage would have done a better job on the build, that’s for sure, but I didn’t have a lot of time to spend before this tournament. The manabase is an unmitigated disaster, I didn’t have time to fix it properly. I did cut back on a couple Scars lands since hitting land drops (untapped) after turn 3 is extremely important. It can mean the difference between a turn 4 [card]Day of Judgment[/card] and a loss. For that reason this deck probably needs another land.
The 2011s in Toronto had somewhere around 143 people, so 8 rounds.
My matchups on the day:
Solar Flare (1-0)
Mono Red (1-1)
Solar Flare (1-1-1)
At this point I am in the draw bracket and have to X-0 the rest of the day to even have a shot at Top 8. Blessing in disguise?
Solar Flare (2-1-1)
Solar Flare (3-1-1)
Wolf Run Ramp (4-1-1)
Solar Flare (5-1-1)
Wolf Run Ramp (6-1-1) * I played like a donkey in game 3 of this match, but fortune smiled. I’ll take it *
Which put me in 8th! There was one 6-1-1 that didn’t make it in. Honestly, I’m surprised my breakers were higher than anyone, with my loss and draw being so early in the day.
Top 8 Archetypes in Toronto: 3 Wolf Run, 2 Mono Red, 1 UB Infect, 1 UB Control, 1 Solar Flare
I was the only Solar Flare player in the Top 8. I wasn’t that surprised, it felt like everyone in the room showed up with their Solar-Flare-Seeking Missiles. I don’t mind playing through hate sometimes, with this many [card]Surgical Extraction[/card]s running around it is important to diversify your threats, and rely on using the graveyard as little as possible after game 1. [card]Gideon Jura[/card] was a big help in this, I would like to give credit to Dan Lanthier for reminding me that Gideon existed. [card]Gideon Jura[/card] is pretty much the best thing ever right now, it is good against fast aggro, it buys you a turn versus [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] in Wolf Run, and against Solar Flare it’s a Titan that doesn’t die to [card]Day of Judgment[/card] or Liliana.
I then promptly stalled on 3 lands in game 1 vs. National Champion Marc Anderson playing Mono Red with 2 [card]Day of Judgment[/card] in my hand (I had turn 3 [card]Timely Reinforcements[/card]. He actually went to pick up his 4 creatures on my turn 4 and bin them but I did not have the 4th land, 3 turns later I still didn’t and I was dead)
Game 2 was closer, but I had mostly answers, not enough threats, and he Brimstone Volleyed me for exactsies the turn before I could play my second [card]Timely Reinforcements[/card]. One single [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] dealt 12 damage to him, I sent him into the Red Zone since I was mostly taking damage from [card]Chandra’s Phoenix[/card].
But I was still very happy. After round 3 I did not expect to get into the Top 8.
I do have many changes to make to my list – I would not recommend this exact 76. Probably move the Wurmcoil main and move a Timely to the board. This list is not great against Mono-Red. Possibly find room for a second [card]Celestial Purge[/card], or [card]Rune-Scarred Demon[/card] somewhere in there. I also want to try out [card]Witchbane Orb[/card], although I am hesitant since most Mono Red lists play [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]. Maybe board it in game 2 and out again in game 3, stranding their [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]s in their hand? Another card I need to try with Liliana at some point is [card]Sangromancer[/card]. It basically reads: “Whenever you activate Liliana, gain 3 life.” It also profitably blocks [card]Chandra’s Phoenix[/card] and [card]Moorland Haunt[/card] tokens, and carries a Sword pretty well.
Also, now that I have more time, I’m going to trim it down to 75. I also found that I didn’t quite have enough card draw, there were games where I just drew no [card]Think Twice[/card] and no [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]. I’d sooner go up to 4 [card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card] than 3 [card]Think Twice[/card], playing with that card feels like cheating. I have used [card]Dissipate[/card] on opposing FA’s in the mirror and I think that’s correct a majority of the time if you can spare the counter, even considering the fact you’ve probably tapped yourself out for their turn. Forbidden Alchemy generates SO MUCH advantage! Also, probably a second [card]Gideon Jura[/card] in the board.
The Top 8 playmat from States is gorgeous. EVERY GP FROM 2010 FORWARD (except GP Toronto last year), YOU CAN LEARN A FEW THINGS. Yeah, licensing, I know, blah blah blah, I just want nice looking playmats – is that too much to ask?
So that was my 2011s. But to go back to my original point: what decks do you like to play? Does that say anything about who you are? Does your attitude on life influence your deck choices? Think about it.
Thanks for reading.
Johnathan ‘Academic Ruins’ Bentley
Johnathan Bentley has been diagnosed with Brewer’s Disease and as such is compelled to try new things, rather than stick with boring ‘stock’ decklists. Aside from winning CMT Ottawa 2011, he has yet to put up an incredibly notable finish – this makes him: Under the Radar.