A couple weeks ago I posted an article to the Dojo containing my take on the Rath constructed metagame. I suggested at the time that the known archetypes arranged themselves into a rock-paper-scissors configuration where aggression beats control, control beats Living Death, and Living Death beats aggression. I also explained that I personally don't think there ever really are rock-paper-scissors metagames and that I was trying to find a deck to play in Grand Prixs that could beat all the known decks. Now two Grand Prixs have come and gone. I played essentially the same deck in both of them, finishing 2nd at Grand Prix Boston and 3rd at Grand Prix Lisbon. I don't know whether that means I succeeded or failed in coming up with a deck that can beat everything! 2nd and 3rd is pretty good and the $3,000 I won makes me optimistic that I really can make a living as a professional magic player, but I didn't actually win either tournament. Anyway, I'll go so far as to say that there is another viable archetype which didn't receive a lot of attention right after World's, but should become a fixture in the metagame: Counter-Phoenix. Boston showed me that the Rath environment is slow, interesting, and complicated enough that skill is more important than match-ups. Supposedly, Tradewind/Awakening beats Living Death. However, don't tell that to Jon Finkel. He's undefeated against Awakening while playing his Death deck at World's and at Boston -- something like 6-0. I think the moral of the story is that many of the important deck match-ups are close enough that the better player will win no matter which side he or she is on. When that's true, I think that makes it advantageous for a good player to play control and not beatdown. Chris Pikula is a really good player, but he played Sligh in Boston and failed to make the second day. (David Price also failed to make the 2nd day with mono-red.) I think if he had chosen to play a deck that would give him opportunities to outplay his opponent, he would have been better off. Chris himself agreed with me after the tournament. Of course you have to respect the speed and power of beatdown strategies like Hatred and Deadguy Red, but so long as you test against them and tune your deck accordingly, you can consistently beat them with the various control strategies available in this environment. Boston also showed me that counter-phoenix is a really strong deck. Team CMU kept testing Rath constructed after World's and in particular we worked on tuning the counter-phoenix deck that Erik played at World's. By the time we got to Boston, I thought we had a deck that had a positive winning percentage against every deck we expected -- a Shard Grenade, if you will. I lost two matches in the Swiss and then lost the finals to Finkel. All three of those losses were to Living Death decks. I still think we were right that counter-phoenix beat all the decks in our playtest gauntlet more than half the time, however, Finkel updated his Living Death deck by adding two Scroll Racks and those two cards made the match-up a lot harder for CP to win. Those two Scroll Racks give the Death deck that many more threat cards to cast for 2 mana. Game 1 of the finals was a perfect illustration -- Finkel won the die roll and played turn 2 Scroll Rack. I can't counter yet because I only have 1 mana in play. On turn 4 Finkel played Hermit Druid, which I countered (since I couldn't kill it), and then he played Survival of the Fittest, which I couldn't counter because I only had 1 mana left untapped. Scroll Rack/Survival allowed him to keep finding threat cards and eventually run me out of permission. Anyway, Steve O. also played this deck and also beat me with it (though I did avenge my loss in the semi-finals). My point is that I think the addition of Scroll Racks changed this from a match-up in which CP has the advantage to a match-up where Death has the advantage. Living Death also has the ultimate counter-phoenix hoser card in its sideboard: Oath of Ghouls. I knew that if Death goes first and plays turn 2 Oath of Ghouls, it's really hard for CP to win. All you can do is Capsize and then counter the Oath, but by the time you have enough mana to execute this plan, you're often too far behind to win. I spent the ride home from Boston brainstorming with Erik on how to turn this match-up back around before I flew off to Lisbon. We didn't come up with much, but he sent me an e-mail right before I left that suggested running Mogg Fanatics in order to be able to sideboard Portcullis. I didn't think 8 creatures was enough to actually lock the game up with Portcullis, but I've learned to listen to even Erik's craziest ideas. When I got to Lisbon I asked one of the local players to test Death vs. CP with me after sideboarding for a few hours. The difference was insane -- Portcullis proved to be incredibly powerful and Intuition made my 8 creatures feel more like 14. The Death player would usually have 1-2 creatures in play when I dropped Portcullis, but between Shock, Capsize, Intuition, and Shard Phoenix I was essentially always able to lock the game up with just 2 creatures on my side before they could kill me. I felt my sideboard in Lisbon was significantly stronger than my sideboard in Boston. Here are the decks that I played: "THE FORBIDDEN PHOENIX"
Boston Lisbon
4 Shard Phoenix 4 Shard Phoenix
4 Intuition 4 Intuition
4 Mana Leak 4 Mana leak
4 Counterspell 4 Counterspell
4 Forbid 4 Forbid
2 Dismiss 2 Dismiss
4 Shock 4 Shock
1 Searing Touch 1 Mogg Fanatic
3 Capsize 3 Capsize
14 Island 14 Island
10 Mountain 10 Mountain
4 Reflecting Pool 4 Reflecting Pool
2 Caldera Lake 1 Caldera Lake
1 Scroll Rack
Sideboard: Sideboard:
3 Searing Touch 3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Interdict 3 Portcullis
3 Fylamarid 3 Thalakos Drifters
3 Shattering Pulse 3 Shattering Pulse
1 Dismiss 1 Dismiss
2 Stalking Stones 2 Stalking Stones
After Lisbon I decided all the changes I made really were
improvements. If I was to play this at another tournament I think
would add a 2nd Scroll Rack and pull the last Caldera Lake. I think I
would also try Ertai's Meddling in the sideboard instead of Stalking
Stones.
My other change to the sideboard before Lisbon is probably worthy of comment: White Weenie has some annoying cards in it from a CP player's point of view. Soltari Priest and Paladin en-Vec are immune to the Phoenix. Cataclysm is also something you'd rather not have happen. In Boston I ran Fylamarid to deal with white weenie (turn the Shard Phoenix blue and it kills Priests!). Fylamarid did his job perfectly: I never actually had to play against white weenie. ;-) However, I was thinking about how the game evolves against WW and I realized that if I play a Fylamarid on turn 3 and the WW guy went first, he has a window of opportunity where he can Cataclysm. That's not good, so I switched to Thalakos Drifters. They aren't as powerful as Fylamarid plus Phoenix (and they aren't nearly as cool), but they're much better than Fylamarid on its own and you don't care if WW Cataclysms while you have a Drifters in play. I did run into one WW in Lisbon and he won the first game, but the Drifters devastated him after sideboarding and I won the match. With all these changes to my sideboard I felt ready for Death and I felt ready for white weenie, but I guess I wasn't ready for Brian Hacker. Hacker took the Humility/Prayer deck he played at World's and updated it in light of new information about the metagame. The main change he made was to pull the Propagandas out of his main deck and put in Lobotomy instead. Because the beatdown decks aren't as good as they are in Standard and because so many people play slow decks, Lobotomy is a great card in this environment. Hats off to Brian -- he figured out exactly this and beat me because of it. I found during playtesting that I could beat his World's deck something like 65% of the time. I just ignored his Propagandas, tried to counter half of his Humility/Prayer combo and eventually paid to attack with my Phoenixes and killed him. I can't exactly ignore Lobotomy though and he took 4 straight from me in Lisbon. He was my only loss in the Swiss (I was the #1 seed going into the top 8) and he beat me in the semi's. I don't think the match-up is so bad that I should lose 4 straight duels, but I do think Lobotomy gives him the deck match-up advantage. Counter-phoenix is not an easy deck to pick up and play, but if you put in some practice time, I think it's a very powerful archetype. Intuition adds incredible consistency to the deck and Intuitioning for Shard Phoenixes is incredible card advantage so long as you don't make any mistakes and thus live long enough to take advantage of it. Both recent Grand Prixs have been won by Living Death decks, but I think the latest changes I made to CP make this a very winnable match-up. All good Death deck will have answers to Portcullis, but they aren't prepared to deal with Portcullis plus permission. When I played the guy who won Grand Prix Lisbon during the Swiss, I won two straight. I Forbid/Phoenix-locked him in game 1 (he used his Volrath's Stronghold to cast the same Tradewind Rider on 20 consecutive turns, but I eventually drew into Dismisses and got so far ahead that I kept countering and could play Phoenixes to attack with at the same time). In game 2 I Portcullis locked him. If only I hadn't been knocked out in the semi's by my Cali Curse ... I'm now 0-3 in Grand Prixs against Hacker and Ben Rubin won't let anyone forget my 0-2 record in PTs against him. (For lack of a better segue...) PROPS: To the people in Portugal and their amazing hospitality. I was shown around town by the guys at Devir -- the distributor for Portugal and Brazil. They and the local players were great to hang out with on Thursday and Friday. Portuguese culture is amazing -- they plan their days around when to go out for a meal or a beer. Everything else is just something to do in between beers! It makes for an incredibly laid back culture and I think they are the happiest group of people I've ever known. To the Portuguese cabby who spoke enough Spanish to figure out that we were hungry Sunday night after the Grand Prix and took us to the best steak I have ever eaten in my life. To Glen and Gray Matter for the job they did running Grand Prix Boston. To Bruno, Misha, and the WotC-Belgium crew for running another fine Grand Prix. To Finkel. For being tied for 2nd in PT points with Random.PortugueseGuy ;-) Seriously, Finkel defines an ideal that everyone can strive to achieve. I thought I had a good year when I realized I had made the top 16 at 4 of the 6 major events that a US player can play in (4 PTs, World's, and US Nationals). Finkel made the top 4 at 4 of them. -Randy Buehler |
Subject: Grand Prixs Rpt ("Shard grenade")
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:36:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Randolph E Buehler Jr."