[Free Article] My Gen Con 2010

[voltron00x]

Article for this week recaps my Gen Con.  With no play-testing done for weeks before Gen Con (not just for Vintage, but for anything - not so much as a single M11 draft or MWS game) I treated this much more as a vacation than a series of important tournaments.  It was successful as a fun vacation and a dismal failure as far as card battling. 

There's a section on Vintage that some of you may find interesting, not so much a report but more of a look at what happened, why it happened, and where we go from here:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19834_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_My_GenCon_2010.html

[Prospero]

Another solid article.  Good work Matt.

[voltron00x]

Another solid article.  Good work Matt.

Thanks Nick.  I would really like for you to come out to one of these.  What do I need to do for you to attend in 2011?

[M.Solymossy]

Another solid article.  Good work Matt.

Thanks Nick.  I would really like for you to come out to one of these.  What do I need to do for you to attend in 2011?

LOL Win?

NAW JK.  Yeah Prospero, it woulda been a good time. You missed out.

And matt, decent article. 

[Iron_Chef]

-1 for not namedropping me  .  Otherwise it was a good article.

[2nd_lawl]

sweet article, see you in Bluebell this weekend.

[Prospero]

Another solid article.  Good work Matt.

Thanks Nick.  I would really like for you to come out to one of these.  What do I need to do for you to attend in 2011?

Ah, I wanted to go, but we'll talk about it on Saturday in BB.

And I was there in spirit at the least.  Vin Forino had my 75, playmat and dice and used them well.

[Nehptis]

A good read. And I think you / Steve are definitely on to something with Bolt.  I don't know which deck it is best in.  But, Bolt answers a lot of creature threats right now.  I'd love to see it come back to Vintage!

[voltron00x]

There are a number of things I’m excited about right now for Magic, especially in Vintage and Legacy.  I like to ask a lot of questions.  Questions promote dialogue and, hopefully, help us reach conclusions and formulate plans of action.  This is the kind of stuff I'm hoping to explore in upcoming articles.

Vintage:  I want to figure out how to keep Fish relevant.  Noble Fish splash red for Bolts?  Wins the mirror, kills Bob and Jace and Lodestone, gives the deck some reach?   Does Oath really need to “morph” itself again or can we just play Thoughtseize and Maelstrom Pulse and more Jace, more REB in the board?  It seems like the field might be vulnerable to a more aggressive style of Oath rather than a more controlling version, because Oath will always be out-controlled by true-on control decks (it has too many win condition-related cards).  Does Oath want 1 Bolt also?  Do we reboot to something more King James style or has the format moved too far past that?  Should we play Show and Tell as a back-up plan again, and if so, what creatures are best for that plan?  Does a full-on dedicated Show and Tell deck make sense for Vintage?  It would be significantly better than the similar decks in Legacy.  Is the Shop match-up against this new Jace deck really that bad given Chalice 1, does Trygon really blow up the match-up that badly?  If so, how do we beat that?  Maze of Ith?  Splash red for Bolt, or REB, MD or SB, with Welder?  Is Trike sufficient?  How good is that Jace deck, anyway?  Can it really beat Storm?  What happens if those Storm players aren’t paired up in the top 8?  My guess is one of them wins the tournament, your thoughts?  Will people finally admit Dark Times is a real deck and that Max Brown is a scary mad scientist? 

Legacy:  I want to break that Vengevine Madness deck (and hell I want to try it in Vintage, too).  Intuition should be bonkers in that list.  Will Merfolk suppress Show and Tell-style decks that beat Zoo, or is Goblins going to start pushing them both around? If so, what does anti-Goblins Zoo look like?  Is TES just the better option?  Can Legacy stay this broad or is it going to resettle into 6-8 key players as before, and if so, what are those players?  Merfolk / Lands / Show&Tell / Goblins / Zoo / Landstill / Countertop / TES, maybe? Is Lands really even that good at this point?  How long can quasi-Oath style decks keep beating up on Zoo given their poor match-ups against Tribal?  Is New Horizons already on the way out?  Am I the only one that feels Legacy is more match-up dependant than ever before with the loss of Mystical Tutor? 

[Troy_Costisick]

It seems like the field might be vulnerable to a more aggressive style of Oath rather than a more controlling version, because Oath will always be out-controlled by true-on control decks (it has too many win condition-related cards).

Over in this thread (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40468.0) I developed a deck called Careful Oath that was hyper agressive and more combo-ish than Elephant Oath.  It might be what you are looking for.  I should update the decklist to include Pre-ordains and Jaces because they are a definate upgrade for the deck.  Anyway, that may be along the lines you are lookinf for when it comes to a more agressive version of Oath.  I, personally, have had success with it using MWS.  It could be worth a look for you, Matt.

Peace,

-Troy

[CorwinB]

What are the problems with Oath right now ? It seems to suffer a lot from shared hate with MUD (Nature's Claim, Trygon, often maindeck), from the rise of Jace (the -1 on Jace sure helps a lot handling Oath monsters), and from MUD being able to race it. Playing more compact win conditions in order to improve its resiliency or consistency (more bounce, counters, tutors...) would mean opening it again to Ravenous Trap (something the more controllish Oath with the Vault/Key package, Oath+monsters, Tinker+robot and Jace avoided)...

I'm not sure what the solutions are. A Show&Tell backup plan in the sideboard helps Oath a lot, especially against Trygon, but your sideboard already needs half its slots just for Dredge and several slots for MUD, so... Perhaps edge the bets by running Show&Tell in the main ?

[voltron00x]

Oath has a lot of problems right now:

-Trygon Tezz runs a significant number of answers that are very low mana cost:  Thoughtseize, Spell Pierce, Nature’s Claim.  They can afford to play out Bob and fight off Oath of Druids, especially given their ability to play out Trygon to keep Oath off the table.  They have as many, or more, Jace as we have, but theirs are more devastating because of how our deck is trying to win.  An Oath into Sphinx or Iona doesn’t do anything if Jace is in play, so you can get a window to Oath once only to see it slam shut immediately.  Fighting over Jace is difficult, again, b/c of the reasons noted above: they’re better-equipped to fight that battle, having access to castable creatures, TS, Spell Pierce, and REB / Pyroblast.  They’re also less likely to mulligan and in the Oath match-up they have very few dead draws (while the opposite isn’t true at all).

-Noble Fish has access to a non-creature hoser for Oath in Leyline of Sanctity.  Previously sweepers like Balance, Firespout, or Massacre would clear away Meddling Mage or True Believer.  Now we have to beat those cards AND defeat a non-creature hoser in Leyline.

-Dredge is a natural predator for blue-based control that can seriously affect Oath’s ability to race through Chalice of the Void and Leyline of Sanctity.  The match-up feels acceptable to me at 8 hate cards but still can be a challenge.

-MUD has generally felt favorable to me but that really depends on how prepared the opponent is for Oath, and some things the Oath player can’t really control (including type and quantity of SB cards and the specific deck design, such as whether they have Smokestack, or MD Duplicant).  A high-quality MUD player with a good hand on the play is hard to beat with anything.

[M.Solymossy]

The storm players are both really good pilots, but unfortunately, neither of them is as good as Owen or Bob Mahr.


Lets just get over it;  the best two players in that room met in the finals.

[failtofind]

 i dont think Trygon Tezz is a bad matchup for storm, i would rather see that all day than remora/heavier hard counters. the only person i lost to at gencon playing that deck was owen in 3.  -Jesse

[Stormanimagus]

i dont think Trygon Tezz is a bad matchup for storm, i would rather see that all day than remora/heavier hard counters. the only person i lost to at gencon playing that deck was owen in 3.  -Jesse

Good call Jesse. Yeah, the top cards I'm scared to see across from me as a TPS pilot really are only (in this order):

1. Mystic Remora
2. Sphere Of Resistance
3. Thorn of Amethyst
4. Trinisphere
5. Lodestone Golem
6. Mindbreak Trap
7. Aven Mindcensor
8. Gaddock Teeg
9. Rule Of Law
10. Leyline Of Sanctity (Lack Of Bounce for it)
11. Duress
12. Thoughtseize
13. Jace, The Mind Sculptor

The cards run in Tezz are at the bottom of my list. TPS's real enemies are Discard and permanent effects that are hard to remove or have a solid plan B for. Remora is really the scariest thing you'll probably see as a TPS pilot overall IMO.

-Storm

[Prospero]

I readily admit that Max Brown is a scary mad scientist.  You didn't get to see the evolution.  Max Brown version 1.0 got blown out by cards like Psionic Blast.  Version 4.0 is better.

[2nd_lawl]

with jace everywhere perhaps the thing to do would be to switch back to Inkwell for your robot oath target? That change alone would seem to give you alot of game vs trygon tez decks.  Removing jace as an out to tinker/activated oath seems really strong.

[Odd mutation]

There are a number of things I’m excited about right now for Magic, especially in Vintage and Legacy.  I like to ask a lot of questions.  Questions promote dialogue and, hopefully, help us reach conclusions and formulate plans of action.  This is the kind of stuff I'm hoping to explore in upcoming articles.

Vintage:  I want to figure out how to keep Fish relevant.  Noble Fish splash red for Bolts?  Wins the mirror, kills Bob and Jace and Lodestone, gives the deck some reach?   Does Oath really need to “morph” itself again or can we just play Thoughtseize and Maelstrom Pulse and more Jace, more REB in the board?  It seems like the field might be vulnerable to a more aggressive style of Oath rather than a more controlling version, because Oath will always be out-controlled by true-on control decks (it has too many win condition-related cards).  Does Oath want 1 Bolt also?  Do we reboot to something more King James style or has the format moved too far past that?  Should we play Show and Tell as a back-up plan again, and if so, what creatures are best for that plan?  Does a full-on dedicated Show and Tell deck make sense for Vintage?  It would be significantly better than the similar decks in Legacy.  Is the Shop match-up against this new Jace deck really that bad given Chalice 1, does Trygon really blow up the match-up that badly?  If so, how do we beat that?  Maze of Ith?  Splash red for Bolt, or REB, MD or SB, with Welder?  Is Trike sufficient?  How good is that Jace deck, anyway?  Can it really beat Storm?  What happens if those Storm players aren’t paired up in the top 8?  My guess is one of them wins the tournament, your thoughts?  Will people finally admit Dark Times is a real deck and that Max Brown is a scary mad scientist?

Exactly the questions I have about the format and Oath! I've been trying to add one or even two Lightning Bolts to my Oath deck and to Owen's list but haven't really tested it yet. Darkblast side is still an option too... They didn't seem so well placed in Oath but might be good in Jace Control.

I've been playing Inkwell Leviathan as robot and one Show and Tell main, one in the sideboard. At first just for the Fish matchup but now also for the Jace Control matchup. I used to have 2 Thoughtseize in the sideboard but have 3 in the main now. The list isn't done yet...

Robrecht

[v4ino]

"I was right on MUD, although one of the three was NYSE Espresso Stax and not Aggro MUD. Big congrats to Vinnie Forino for representing NYSE."

NYSE Espresso Stax - Eliase why would you list the deck as such, where has it ever been written with an NYSE in front of the deck name (no actual response needed)? I ask this because NYSE is a tournament venue, it is not a team that I am aware of nor one that me or my brother are part of (anyone who knows me understands that I don't believe in teams and turned down an invite to R&D).

I believe that many people have this misunderstanding because when Tezz was new and tearing up the scene my brother was asked (Oct/Nov 08") by the local Shop players to come out of retirement and quell the beast. After playing traviscon with a 5C list that was meta'd for GAT he single highhandedly innovated 5C stax by switching to thorns and all the complementary cards to own a Tezz meta. He tutored the local shop fledglings on what the proper 75 should be, how to play the deck and how to board.

Some students where better than others and excelled which made Raffaele happy as he didn't get to go to many tournaments.

In regards to Espresso Stax, the deck was primarily my design with finishing touches put on by my brother (especially SB strategy) - no one else had any input or contributed in any significant manor aside from being a cheerleader. The name of the deck probably speaks to this along with the jump in technology that someone outside of the Shop bubble contributed. To this I must compliment my brother as he asked me to play 5C in December 09' for a tournament (I got 9th on breakers) so he can have a fresh set of eyes on Shops which along with Loadstone spawned the deck.

Very good article overall, you do sound like you can use some cheese with the whine about your performance (which is justified; more often than not Life gets in the way of magic for me...), MTG is a hobby (at-least for guys like me) and most people read articles to be entertained not hear about others problems. There are good lessons regarding play-testing and deck selection for anyone who payed attention.

[voltron00x]

I always just associate you and your brother with NYSE – the events, the guys at said events, the city of NY, the stupid Yankees.  I wasn’t trying to give a team or group credit where it may not have been due, if that isn’t the case.  I’m sorry if I was off there, my mistake.  My intention was the reverse, to give you credit for your performance and for the deck.

[Cyberpunker]

Thanks for the article/report! I wish I was a writer for StarcityGames so I can post my tournament reports here!