Friday, November 2, 2012

2012 Blowfish Invbitational: Meta-Game Preview

By Adam Katz.

So it is almost time for the inaugural Blowfish Invitational, and after all the negative and positive said about the event, there is no doubt in my mind that this event carries the most prestigious crown that can currently be won in a Magic calendar. Winning a PTQ may send you to a pro tour, Wizards can tell us as much as they want how WMCQ’s are the new Nationals, but at the end of the day nothing can compete with an invitational, 12 round swiss event, covering three formats followed by a top 8 knockout. I have no doubt that people will consider the winner of this event as the national champion.

To my frustration I will not be competing in this event, which gives me the unique chance to be open and honest about how I feel the field would look and tell you how my preparation would go.

At this point, I have not played a constructed event since Return to Ravnica hit the shelves, so I am coming into this completely blind and you will see how my thought process would go had I started testing one week before the event.

Step one is to always look at the current decks, you do this with two things in mind, the first is to work out the perceived meta game and the second is to find ideas that you like. There is much to say about the latter, and I may write about that another day, but for now lets look at what everyone else is playing.

First step is to find a couple of lists of decks. Since RTR has not hit Magic the Gathering Online yet and there have been no Grand Prixs the best we have is Starcity games events, here is the Top 8 of the most recent event.

G/W Humans

U/W/R Midrange

Bant Control

Jund Midrange

U/W/R Midrange

Jund Midrange

Junk Midrange

Naya Midrange

What should immediately pop into our minds is the word midrange. Everyone is running decks packed full of powerful cards and low synergy. Now generally Midrange decks prey upon Aggro decks while losing to slower control decks, so I would immediately make a mental note to avoid Aggro lists and this idea is compounded by the fact that the obvious go-to-deck for this tournament must have been Zombies which did not manage a single player in the top 16, however in this event an Aggro deck won, which makes a person wonder, are these mid-ranged decks not running good anti Aggro cards like Thragtusk? Or is it something about this Aggro deck that gives it power against the slightly slower but beefier decks.

First thing I do now is to go and read the match reports with the winning deck. It seems he had a two pronged attack that the midrange deck could not deal with. The first one was a Champion of the Parish followed up by Rancor and Silverblade Paladin for the quick win, if this did not work, he has some great mid-game options with Rancor coming back. Rancor is really what makes this deck good, allowing the Aggro deck to match the midrange deck later in the match and forcing the midrange deck's better creatures to trade with smaller creatures from the Aggro side.

Here is the list:

Creatures
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Champion of the Parish
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Mayor of Avabruck
1 Riders of Gavony
4 Silverblade Paladin
1 Sublime Archangel
2 Wolfir Silverheart

Enchantments
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Rancor

Instants
1 Faith's Shield

Legendary Creatures
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

Planeswalkers
2 Garruk Relentless
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Sorceries
2 Gather the Townsfolk

Basic Lands
5 Forest
6 Plains

Lands
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Gavony Township
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard:
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Armada Wurm
2 Knight of Glory
1 Riders of Gavony
2 Nevermore
1 Druid's Deliverance
1 Faith's Shield
2 Purify the Grave
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Rootborn Defenses
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Looking at the midrange decks I notice a lot of Rakdos Return and a lot of Bonfire of the Damned / Supreme Verdict. The Rakdos Return makes me hesitant to run a slower control type build as if I ever tap out I am going to be in big trouble, and the big sweeper spells make me nervous to play creature decks that can get into trouble against said cards.

Here is a good example of a Jund midrange deck that made the Top 8.

Artifacts
3 Rakdos Keyrune

Creatures
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Thragtusk
1 Thundermaw Hellkite

Enchantments
2 Underworld Connections

Legendary Creatures
4 Olivia Voldaren

Planeswalkers
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Sorceries
3 Dreadbore
4 Farseek
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Pillar of Flame
3 Rakdos's Return
1 Sever the Bloodline

Basic Lands
3 Forest
3 Mountain

Lands
4 Blood Crypt
1 Dragonskull Summit
2 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Cremate
2 Golgari Charm
2 Vraska the Unseen
2 Appetite for Brains
1 Dreadbore
1 Sever the Bloodline
2 Slaughter Games

The big question of course with this event, is where is Zombies? Was it not the best deck in the format 3 days ago? How come it missed the entire Top 16 at this event? Personally I think this might be due to Zombies not being good in a midrange metagame. The reason for this is as follows, Zombies is a deck that relies on two things, First, on tempo, getting out of the gates fast with an abundance of 2 power, one mana creatures, and second is excellent reach (reach is what aggro decks use to finish you off once their original ground assault is finished, in zombies that reach is burn as well as the insane blood artist). If your opponent manages to fend off the original onslaught and can take care of your Blood Artists you are going to be in a tough spot, especially if your opponent has life gain for the middle game meaning your reach becomes blunted. If you look at these Jund decks you will notice plenty to survive the early game, Pillar of Flame, Dreadbore and then Thragtusk and Huntmaster of the Fells to get the game out of reach, with Olivia Voldaren there to end it all. Right now, I would not play Zombies.

The next deck worth talking about is the current Reanimator deck. The great thing about this deck is that it has a two pronged attack, first it tries to reanimate fat monsters early, but if that plan does not work it has great mana acceleration to get those creatures out late game.

Creatures
4 Angel of Serenity
3 Arbor Elf
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Borderland Ranger
1 Centaur Healer
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk

Instants
4 Grisly Salvage

Sorceries
2 Lingering Souls
4 Mulch
4 Unburial Rites

Basic Lands
5 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp

Lands
1 Gavony Township
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:
2 Centaur Healer
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Divine Reckoning
2 Duress
1 Sever the Bloodline

For me I would only play this deck if the field does not expect it, it is a fairly straight forward deck to attack, attack the graveyard and kill off the mana dorks and the deck can flounder. That being said, do be prepared with some graveyard hate as a quick angel can destroy you with few problems

At this point, I would narrow my options down to the following 4 deck types, Rancor Aggro, Midrange, control with lots of counterspells which tries to never tap out and combo, since I cannot think of any possible combo decks and I do not believe a straight counter deck could work in this format I would be stuck choosing between Rancor Aggro and Midrange. Note at this point I have left the midrange very wide open, and I do not think that one is at all forced to run the Jund midrange that has been working so well lately. Since I personally do not enjoy playing Aggro that leaves me with just one choice and that is midrange.

At this point I will try think of an idea of a midrange deck which is well positioned to stop Aggro (especially Zombies, since even though I think this would be a bad choice it still will be prevalent) and will have a good match against other midrange decks, meaning I will be looking for cards like, Rakdos return, Snapcaster Mage, Thragtusk and possibly Jace, Architect of Thought.

One may complain and say that I have gleamed too much from just one event, and that person would be correct, however with 3 days to go to the event a player will little experience in the format just doesn't have enough time to play 100+ games against each deck, so using theory to manage my choice down to a single deck idea can save a person many hours of testing.

Once my deck is chosen I will still need 200-400 games to make changes and learn the inns and outs of the list. Although quality testing against good decks from quality players is a must, there is nothing wrong with playing a large portion of these games on a free program like cockatrice against random players with random decks, although this is not quality testing, it is quantity testing and will give you a feel for the flow of your deck and let you know which cards are not pulling their weight.

2 comments:

  1. Uhhh, RTR has been online for a couple weeks now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. the release only ended on Wednesday so big online only start after that.
    I wrote the article on tuesday

    ReplyDelete