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Juggernaut GO
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« on: March 11, 2006, 08:14:44 am » |
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This is part of an article I wrote, but has a bunch of workshop decks in it and a history of my scrubness. Enjoy.
Playing Mishra's Workshop in Vintage:
I have been playing on and off since revised came out, and first jumped into the world of competitive type one near the end of 2003. I remember playing mono black control in the day when Worldgorger Dragon and Meandeck slavery were the tier 1 decks of the format. One of my first ever real vintage tournament was one for a double black lotus in Newington, CT around March of 2004. I didn't know it at the time, but some of the most famous names in the vintage community were there. Mono black with my Planar Void tech and main deck Hypnotic Specter and The Rack just did not cut it, but I still managed a 4-2 record before going home. I think everyone remembers this day as the incredibly upsetting "lets repeat round 2" tournament.
Fast forward to The Mana Drain Open III in Waterbury, CT. In between the time at Newington and the day of Waterbury III, I hadn't changed my deck very much but continued to play at my local store with all my friends. We all played unpowered decks and one group of kids we called "The Ringer's" would be the only one to show up with power. One of them was Jay who would play every week with Worldgorger Dragon and just destroy everyone. He must have won over $1000 in store credit in a few months of play. I went to Waterbury III with Hatcher and another friend Tony who has since quit magic, and we learned how mismatched we really were in the type 1 world.
In between Waterbury III and IV is when I first discovered Mishra's Workshop. Since the entire Mirrodin block had been released at this point, Hatcher brought Goblin Welder to my attention and I instantly had to play it. I ran a mono red Welder MUD deck featuring Grafted Skullcap, Karn Silver Golem, Metalworker and a few Duplicants. I spent the few months in between learning more and more about what to expect from opposing decks, and we arrive at Waterbury IV, my first decent finish in a tournament:
WORKSHOP AGGRO:
I created a TnT deck that abused all of the cards brought with the Mirrodin block, it also ran blue which allowed Thirst for Knowledge to speed up the kill even faster, it even added the chance to slave lock a player as well. You will notice no strip effects in this deck. In all the testing I did I just couldn't fit in a Strip Mine with Wastelands, not even a Crop Rotation. Back then, my idea was to primarily resolve the Survival Of The Fittest. However, I remember facing a couple of different combo decks on the way to the top 16, but sided in Chalice Of The Void and 4 main deck Trinisphere went the distance against 2-Land Belcher and Deathlong. Clearly, this deck is not legal today, however, chalice would be a highly playable card in place of the trinisphere x3.
THIRTEENTH PLACE
Travis Laplante
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk1 Sol Ring
4 Tropical Island
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Pentavus
4 Juggernaut
4 Trinisphere
2 Mindslaver
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Thrist for Knowledge
4 Goblin Welder
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Karn Silver Golem
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Squee Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Mana Vault
Sideboard:
3 Fire/Ice
1 Genesis
1 Viashino Heretic
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Stifle
4 Chalice of the Void
This deck missed a top 8 at TMD open IV because I didn't attack with a Goblin Welder. My final opponent in the top 16 was playing TPS. A black/blue storm combo deck featuring an abnormal amount of main deck artifact bounce. I looked at his decklist a week later and it had 2 Rebuild and 1 Hurkyl’s Recall main, with additional bounce in the sideboard.. I wrecked him game 1 with fast beatings, lost game 2 on turn 3, and game 3 was super close. He was at 1 life I had no creatures in play and he had just Vampiric Tutored for Yawgmoths Will and used Necropotence to bring it into his hand. I had Survival Of The Fittest on board and Anger in the graveyard to make all my creatures have haste but I just couldn't put together the simple idea to use the Survival Of The Fittest to discard Squee Goblin Nabob out of my hand and get a Goblin Welder and attack. The road to the top 16 was entertaining and I got paired against everything from TOG to control slaver. This was definitely my favorite workshop deck ever to play because it just did such broken things.
Some more months go by and December 2004 I spent a lot of time playing TPS and developed a hybrid TPS/Metalworker/Staff Of Domination deck that would beat the growing masses of 4xTrinisphere/4xWasteland/4xJuggernaut decks that David Allen made popular at Gencon.
WORKSHOP COMBO:
TMD Open V: January 2005, dirty control slaver rears its ugly head, along with Meandeck Tendrils.
I played my Metalworker combo deck after taking out the dark ritual/tendrils concept and just replacing it with Memnarch and beat down creatures. Either I would steal their board after the combo with Metalworker and Staff of Domination generating infinite colorless mana and infinite life as long as I had 3 artifacts in my hand to start the combo. I would usually not play a land until I had drawn my deck out, then play Tolarian Academy and play every colorless artifact in the deck then drop academy to add a large amount of blue mana to my pool, and either steal their board with Memnarch or cast Time Walk followed by a Timetwister so I wouldn’t deck myself. The Time Walk turn usually featured them taking about 30-40 damage from creatures.
Travis LaPlante
8th Place
Playing Workshop Combo
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Metal Worker
4 Staff of Domination
4 Juggernaut
4 Duress
1 Memnarch
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Snow Covered Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Diamond
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Eon Hub
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Triskelion
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Twister
1 Memory Jar
Sideboard:
1 Platinum Angel
2 Null Rod
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Boseju, Who Shelters most to a few
1 Echoing Truth
2 Unmask
2 Stifle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Tormod's Crypt
I remember being 5-2 going into the final round and I had to win to hit top 16, I got paired against a near bye playing against a Stax deck with 4x Trinisphere. Both games I remember winning on turn 2 and then turn 3. I squeezed into top 16 at the 16th seed and got paired against number 1 who was RICH SHAY
I had never had luck against him in any tournament so I was just ready to get owned, but game 1 went my way and I beat him with Juggernaut before he could get his game together. Game 2 I got slave locked early after him using Rack and Ruin killing my board, and game 3 was interesting. I can remember getting him to negative life and he had a Platinum Angel in play as well as lotus and 1 untapped land. He tapped the rest of his mana to cast Thirst For Knowledge and Brainstorm or something on his turn. I had Tolarian Academy with a ton of mana available but I had no defensive spells in my hand to counter if he held a Mana Drain. So I had 2 turns left to live and I drew Memnarch and had enough mana to cast him and steal Rich's platinum and win my way to top 8. He showed me his hand afterward and had 2 Force Of Will, but since he was already at negative he could not cast them. To this day he says I won because it was a mistake on his part to not leave the mana up to hard cast Force Of Will, I say you can't win every match. The rest of the top 8 was nearly all control slaver and I ended up losing my top 8 match in 3 games to Eric Dupuis, but I was happy winning a library with a deck that everyone said was terrible. This would end up being a repeating trend at most tournaments I did well at.
May of 2005: Waterbury Open 6, and Star City Richmond. What a great month!
TMD OPEN 6, another great tournament, however the player turnout was lower then other Waterbury tournaments at 140 players. I end the Swiss in 7th place with 19 points.
WORKSHOP AGGRO: EURO/ICBM STYLE
Top Four: Travis LaPlante, Memnarch.dec
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Intuition
2 Shivan Reef
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Mox Ruby
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
4 Su-Chi
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Gilded Lotus
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tinker
2 Transmute Artifact
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
4 Goblin Welder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Grim Monolith
2 Memnarch
2 City of Brass
1 Mana Vault
1 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Triskelion
SB:
3 Arcane Lab4 Ground Seal
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Eon Hub
4 Chalice of the Void
This deck was just so insanely fun to play. At this point Gifts Ungiven had just started to become popular, and many of the former control slaver players switched over to play either Shortbus Severance Belcher or Meandeck version of gifts with Burning Wish. Neither one I was happy to play against because this deck folded pretty hardcore to Mana Drain. This deck was mainly about resolving a Gilded Lotus before Mana Drain mana went online, or at least denying Mana Drain mana until you could drop a Goblin Welder or hard cast a threat. However Fish was HIGHLY popular at this event, and I lost my top 4 match to the winner, Jason Zheng who played U/W fish. It ended up going to game 3 but I just could not find a red mana source, I had Tolarian Academy with a ton of artifact accelerators but he had null rod, and I needed red to drop a Goblin Welder to get rid of the null rod. This deck bore some similarities to the GILDED CLAW deck created by team ICBM at the previous Star City Chicago event, as well as the 5tinker deck made popular in Europe. In the end I found this deck was super solid against anything except null rod, and Mana Drain, 2 cards that started to show up in vintage more and more after Waterbury 6.
2 weeks later: Star City Games P9 tournament Richmond, Virginia
WORKSHOP AGGRO? NO, NULL ROD AGGRO CONTROL? NO, BIG PILE OF CRAP? YES! BUT IT TOOK 2ND!
Mana:
1 strip mine
2 wastelands
4 workshops
4 gemstone mines
2 shivan reefs
2 city of brass
1 tolarian academy
5 moxes
1 black lotus
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
artifacts:
4 chalice of the void
2 null rods
2 crucible of worlds
4 juggernauts
1 darksteel colossus
1 duplicant
1 sundering titan
blue:
4 force of will
2 deep analysis
1 fact or fiction
1 copy artifact
1 time walk
1 ancestral recall
1 tinker
4 thirst for knowledge
1 mystical tutor
red:
4 welders
sideboard:
4 pyrostatic pillar
3 choke
2 blue elemental blast
2 hydroblast
2 eon hub
2 ray of revelation
I fought into the top 8 with this deck after losing only to Oath Of Druid’s in round 5. I had a super close match against 5cSTAX in the top 8, then a quicker match in the top 4 vs The Riddler version 2.0. Yes I ended up losing in the finals, yes I lost to Food Chain goblins, yes I was bent out of shape about it. But, I won 2nd place with a deck that would help define workshop archetypes from this point on. The Force Of Wills were great all day long, the only downside was having to run so many blue cards, some of them which were pretty useless like Deep Analysis. I designed this deck before Uba stax had gained so much popularity in the mid west, and before NULL ROD was popular in workshop decks. Vroman had just made top 8 in April with his early version of Uba stax that ran a lot of Null Rod vulnerable cards, but he still finished 7th. I remember all the flames my deck list got on the forums after it was posted, saying what kind of idiot would run Null Rod in any workshop deck. Well, it sure looks like that backfired on the type 1 community. What happens next, at SCG P9:Chicago in August Robert Vroman won with Uba Stax now featuring 3 main deck Null Rod, where his version he ran in April did not include any in the entire deck.
5 COLOR STAX:
4 Mishra's workshop
2 wasteland
1 strip mine
1 library of Alexandria
4 gemstone mine
3 city of brass
1 adarkar wastes
1 tolarian academy
1 barbarian ring
1 mana crypt
1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 black lotus
1 sundering titan
1 mind's eye
1 possessed portal
1 duplicant
1 trinisphere
3 sphere of resistance
4 smokestack
2 crucible of worlds
2 null rod
4 thirst for knowledge
3 goblin welder
1 enlightened tutor
1 crop rotation
1 gorilla shaman
1 balance
1 fastbond
1 ancestral recall
1 tinker
1 fact or fiction
1 time walk
1 march of the machines
side:
4 blue elemental blast
3 swords to plowshares
2 disenchants
2 ray of revelation
2 sacred ground
2 choke
I can attribute the success I had in the Swiss to only having to play against 2 drain decks in the, 1 of which I lost to. I beat oath, Uba stax, tog, 2xDragon, 1 other deck I can't remember, lost to control slaver, and ID'd with mono blue in the final round. However in the top 16 I beat U/R fish, dragon in the top 8, and Gifts Ungiven in top 4 and top 2. This deck did remarkably well against gifts, but as I said, I had an unlucky match in the Swiss vs. control slaver. Many people would balk at the amount of non artifact spells in the deck that are high casting cost, but in reality, you don't normally cast them until you play Tolarian Academy or get Sol Ring/Mana Crypt. The strategy of this deck was pretty much drop 1st turn Sphere Of Resistance/Smokestack/Goblin Welder, or if your really lucky, 1st turn Library Of Alexandria. Another gripe that people had was that Stax shouldn't slow play its game and instead play out as many permanents as fast as possible. This deck just fundamentally disagreed with that as it loved to draw a ton of cards. Last week I made another top 8 at a small local Beanie Exchange tournament with this deck after not playing it for nearly 2&1/2 months, so it still holds its own in the format.
November 5th, grand prix SAMITE. A 30 something man tournament near Boston, MA. The previous night we were all playing around at the Beanie Exchange and my friend Jesse showed me a draft card he got "Doubling Season" I looked at it, and came up with the idea to run it in a workshop deck with Triskelion, Monkey Cage, Pentavus, and Forgotten Ancient thrown in for good measure. Originally the deck had 4x Mindless Automaton which had decent synergy with Goblin Welder and the Doubling Season. The deck was pretty much a joke but it held its own, and could go extremely broken if you got the right draws. I finished 4th place and won an Italian Mana Drain
WORKSHOP AGGRO: DOUBLING SEASON STYLE
3-4 Travis LaPlante
1 monkey cage
1 minds eye
1 mana crypt
1 sundering titan
1 sol ring
1 forgotten ancient
1 march of the machines
1 sensei's divining top
1 ancestral
1 tolarian academy
1 trinisphere
5 moxen
1 mindslaver
1 fact or fiction
1 crop rotation
1 mana vault
1 barbarian ring
1 time walk
1 demonic tutor
1 triskelion
1 duplicant
1 pentavus
1 doubling season
1 strip mine
1 black lotus
1 library of Alexandria
1 tinker
1 pithing needle
4 mishra’s workshop
3 sphere of resistance
4 thirst for knowledge
4 city of brass
4 gemstone mine
2 gilded lotus
2 wasteland
3 goblin welder
2 crucible of worlds
SB:
2 ray of revelation
3 swords to plowshares
1 rack and ruin
1 viashino heretic
2 sacred ground
3 blue elemental blast
1 hydroblast
2 eon hub
The Doubling Season, while a joke at first actually was important in several games. Twice I played a Triskelion that came into play with 6 counters, I played Monkey Cage and broke it with Pentavus and made 14 2/2 green apes, I used Pentavus to make a ton of 1/1 flyers. This deck was a blast to play, and looks terrible on paper, but has all the core elements a workshop deck needs to succeed. A solid mana base, a bit of disruption, and some win conditions.
That brings me to the middle of November, and another attempt to use workshop in more obscene ways. I was browsing the archives on the mana drain and saw a deck that my friend Keith Johnson played way back at Waterbury IV, it was Turbo Land and as I looked at the list it clicked in my head that this deck has a good game against everything currently in the field. I played it to a 2nd place finish in a local New Hampshire tournament with 26 players, and I made top 8 the following day down at Grand Prix Philly's day 2 type 1 side event for a Mox Jet. There were a bunch of heavy hitters in attendance and I got some pretty decent draws round 1 against Waterbury 7 day 2 champion Eli Kassis. That set the stage for the rest of the day and made top 8 after losing to Doug Linn AKA: Hi-Val. Even though I lost in the top 8 I was happy to get 2 Italian legends packs, and ripped a Mana Drain out of 1 of them. It wasn't a bad month, 2 mana drains in 2 weeks.
WORKSHOP COMBO: TURBO LAND!!!
Travis Laplante (Turbo Land)
1x Trade Routes
1x Crop Rotation
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Fastbond
1x Gorilla Shaman
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Memory Jar
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Strip Mine
1x Mana Crypt
1x Time Walk
1x Regrowth
1x Sol Ring
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Timetwister
1x Black Lotus
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Ruby
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Tinker
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Yawgmoths Will
4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Exploration
3x Tropical Island
4x Horn of Greed
4x Gemstone Mine
3x Wasteland
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x City of Brass
1x Barbarian Ring
Sideboard
2x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Hydroblast
2x Null Rod
4x Red Elemental Blast
2x Ray of Revelation
3x Pyrostatic Pillar
The basic concept of this deck is to get a combination of : Barbarian Ring, Fastbond, Crucible Of Worlds, Glacial Chasm. Fastbond is the key card of the deck and allows you to win outright with Crucible Of Worlds with either a Strip Mine or Wasteland to destroy their mana base. What ends up happening is that you have Crucible Of Worlds in play, you play Fastbond, then Glacial Chasm. Glacial Chasm prevents all further damage dealt to you, meaning every time you play a land from the grave with Crucible Of Worlds you take 0 damage. This allows you to get infinite mana, and infinite strip ability, as well as infinite card draw if you have a Bazaar Of Baghdad in play. Since your win condition is in fact a land, it doesn't matter if you have to discard it, you just need to get Barbarian Ring into the graveyard. After that, you can tap your City of Brass/Gemstone Mine for red mana, then Wasteland/Strip Mine it, re-play both cards from your grave with Crucible Of Worlds and continue the cycle to add infinite red, then just repeatedly play and use Barbarian Ring and kill your opponent. The draw 7's and tutors in the deck make it very consistent win on turn 2-3, and Horn Of Greed is an additional combo enablement.
Also of notice is that I played a similar deck list to this at Star City Rochester P9 in December. I won the first 5 games I played on turn 2. Then, ran into 2 terrible draws game 2&3 against the most obnoxious control slaver player ever who eventually made top 8. I was so tilted after playing that match I pretty much gave away my next match and ended up dropping with the rest of the people I traveled with and opted for an early ride home to get ready for a tournament that Sunday in New Hampshire. Ironically, all 5 of us that traveled from Rochester back home ended up making top 8 at the tournament in New Hampshire.
I would like to go back to a statement I made earlier regarding deck construction for Vintage. The key to good deck building, regardless of the quality of cards you actually win with, is the quality of the cards that enable you to win. Your mana base, your disruption/defense, and your ability to actually draw them.
The number 1 lesson I ever learned from playing against so many Mana Drain archetypes with workshops is to always cast your instants at the end of their first main phase instead of their end step. This takes away some of the potency they can use that drain mana for in their second main phase, should they choose to counter your spell. This has become more and more important now that so many people play their versions of the original SSB and Meandeck gifts decks, Mana Drain IS their only enablement to win the match. They do not run the rock solid mana base they should, and they have 8 disruption spells. If you can stop the ability of their Mana Drain mana to give them a tempo boost, they will not win the match. Early pressure is what winning that match up is all about, be it with a Goblin Welder before they can drop Pithing Needle, or an early Sphere Of Resistance, or even a Null Rod. A Sphere Of Resistance followed by even a single Wasteland or Crucible Of Worlds can almost always seal the game in your favor against many gifts decks.
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