Presenting: A Beautiful Mind

NaClhv

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« on: July 08, 2002, 11:35:05 pm »

Ever since tempest, people have known that land tax + scroll rack is a strong combo. Often characterized as an "ancestral every turn", tax-rack is actually far more powerful than that. It allows you to see up to 11 new cards every turn (7 + 3 from tax + your draw), and it only gets better with multiple land taxes. In fact, this is probably the single most powerful card drawing engine in the game, surpassing other notables such as necro+ivory tower, ancestral+holistic wisdom, squee+bazaar, sylvan+abundance, and welder+jar.

However, despite the fact that its raw drawing power is unparalleled, tax+rack engines have seen little play in type 1. This is because of the other aspects of the engine present some very thorny problems: It requires you to be at a mana disadvantage compared to your opponent. It requires you to play mostly basic lands. It requires you to play white as a major color. It's a two-card combo that takes up valuable one-drop and two-drop slots. Each of these problems place severe restrictions on the viable deck concepts and their construction, which makes the tax+rack engine a difficult one to implement.

To date, the tax+rack engine has only been seen in two major archtypes, and both of them are inflicted with one or more of the maladies mentioned above. In the aggro end, white weenie decks have tried to incorporate tax+rack into their strategy, but they often find that the tax+rack engine competes with other first and second turn drops, such as savannah lions and white knight. And the loss of 4 points of damage on the table, in exchange for a card-drawing engine in an aggressive deck, is often not an appealing bargain. The use of the engine is further hampered by the fact that white is not the best color for an aggressive deck to begin with.

In the control end, parfait immediately comes to mind as the primary candidate for a tax+rack deck. However, being restricted to white and mostly basic lands makes parfait a mono-colored deck, and thus it renounces the awesome toys of blue and black that other control decks play with. The fact that parfait has to be at a mana disadvantage is also detrimental to the deck, especially as a control deck which runs the mana-hungry sacred mesa. For these reasons, parfait has never made it into tier 1 status in type 1.

So we see that the tax+rack engine, despite being powerful, has inherent characteristics which make it difficult to incorporate into either an aggro deck or a control deck. That leaves two other possibilities: aggro-control and combo. While tax+rack as a combo engine is an interesting idea, I chose to explore the aggro-control side of the engine, and came to the deck that I present to you today.

NaClhv
In association with
The Games of Berkeley Type 1 Crew

Presents

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Starring:

5 plains
5 islands
2 undiscovered paradise
2 city of brass
2 gemstone mine
1 library of alexandria
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 mox diamond
1 black lotus
1 sol ring
-22 mana sources

4 land tax
3 scroll rack
1 trade routes
1 zuran orb
-9 engine pieces

1 ancestral recall
1 fact or fiction
1 time walk
1 balance
1 demonic tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 regrowth
1 mind twist
-9 restricted goodness

2 meddling mage
2 devout witness
2 whirlpool warrior
2 werebear
2 mystic enforcer
-10 creatures

2 force of will
2 misdirection
2 back to basics
2 powder keg
1 fire/ice
1 swords to plowshares
-10 control elements

60 cards total

Sideboard: (very tenative)
2 force of will
2 back to basics
1 fire/ice
1 seal of cleansing
2 meddling mage
1 ivory tower
1 aura fracture
2 blood moon
3 swords to plowshares

The idea behind the deck is to have as few lands in play as possible, while playing cheap threats that double as control elements. This allows you to tax even against many aggro decks that only play 2 lands. You'll notice that most of the creatures in the deck have dual functions of being a beatdown creature and a control creature that requires little mana to operate. Keeping with the idea of having few lands in play, all of the counterspells are pitch counters, fueled by the deck's drawing power. None of the control elements are mana hungry. They do their thing, mostly by just sitting there. Almost nothing in the deck requires keeping large amounts of mana open, or having a lot of lands in play.

There are a few cards that are an exception to the above rule: Mystic enforcer is a pure beatdown creature, and it's a whopping 4 mana to cast. However, its threshold ability makes it an excellent deal, essentially shaving off 2 mana from its casting cost, and it is one of the few things that can stop morphling. (werebears follow the same idea: I can't play normal large creatures with high casting cost, so I play cheap creatures that get large with threshold. Werebears are also a source of non-land mana in the deck)

Mind twist and yawgmoth's will are also mana intensive, but these cards fall into the "synergy be damned, this card is broken" category. Fact or fiction is iffy for the deck, but it is included in it for now under the same idea as yawgwill and twist. Besides, fof and yawgwill each have a different kind of synergy with this deck: Fof works well with scroll rack and whirlpool warrior, and yawgwill is good in a deck with a lot of low-casting cost permanents.

Overall, the deck plays like a cross between parfait and miracle grow: Play threats and the tax-rack engine, and win by attacking with large creatures. Against aggro, use the card drawing and manipulation (tutors, scroll rack, whirlpool warrior) to find answers to whatever threat you're dealing with, and just draw a ton of cards when the tax-rack engine is established. Against control, the build of the deck insures that you can overwhelm a counter wall, and that you can pretty much always tax. Use the scroll rack and whirlpool warrior to switch between aggro and control as the situation demands.

The following are matchup analysis against some of the standard archtypes in type 1.

Vs. Keeper: 70% win ratio (49-21 win record)
This deck smashes Keeper. The matchup proceeds with Keeper trying to counter or d-blow all of Mind's threats, and then either eventually failing or losing to the creature that Keeper couldn't spare a counter on. I have tested this matchup extensively, with a total of 70 games recorded on my win-loss notepad, and many more played besides. The 70 games were played mostly pre-sideboard, against a variety of different kinds of Keeper builds, against a variety of Keeper players (all of who were experienced as Keeper players). The 70% win ratio stayed more or less constant across all of the variables mentioned above. Even when I played some games after switching decks with my opponent, or when some other people tried variations of A Beautiful Mind that's more geared towards aggro, Mind continued to smash Keeper, with roughly the same consistancy. This continued to be true even after the Keeper players in my area made changes to their deck to deal with A Beautiful Mnd (e.g. maindeck aura fracture). The post-sideboard matchups would obviously depend on how much hate each deck packs in the sideboard, with both sides having pretty good cards to bring in. But I do not foresee Keeper winning more than 60%, even after sideboarding. All in all, Mind easily crushes Keeper.

Vs. OSE: 70% projected win ratio (4-0 win record)
While those that devoutly play Keeper or OSE might actually debate whether they are the same deck or not, from the standpoint of a deckbuilder outside of the standard blue-based control mindset, they are the same deck. If you can build a deck that beats one of them, it will most likely beat the other as well. This rational, combined with the fact that the only playtesting I've done against OSE resulted in a 4-0 annihilation of OSE, leads me to conclude, with a fair degree of confidence, that Mind will win against OSE with the same ease that it does against Keeper.

Vs. Oath: 70% projected win ratio (6-1 win record)
The same argument as in OSE applies here. All of the blue-based control decks fall to Mind, presumably because of their common weaknesses. Of course, more playtesting would be nice, but again the combination of the similarity argument and the 6-1 win record against Oath leads me to believe that 70% is the correct number.

Vs. Suicide black: 55% projected win ratio (3-2 win record)
Although testing is lacking here, I believe that the 5 games played are representative of the overall trend of the matchup. Suicide black has a problem with land tax: It makes sinkholes pretty much worthless, and greatly diminishes the power of hymn to tourach, and Suicide has a hard time playing around it. Furthermore, mystic enforcer is a huge problem for suicide. After sideboard, the matchup doens't get any better, with Mind having a far more versatile sideboard that includes going up to 4 swords to plowshares. Of course, a slower black deck (Butterknives, Nether Void) has even a tougher time, as they absolutely have to let Mind tax, and cannot threaten with a 4th-turn win.

Vs. Sligh: 55% projected win ratio (4-1 game record)
Mox monkey gives Mind headaches, but other than that, there isn't much to be afraid of. Sligh is fairly slow for an aggro deck, and once Mind gets tax-rack going, there is virtually no hope for Sligh. Given the win record that I have against sligh, I might quote a more optimistic figure than 55%, but for now I will err on the side of caution.

Vs. Stompy: 45-50% projected win ratio
There isn't an outstanding Stompy in my metagame, and it's probably the aggro deck that I'm most afraid of. Its creatures can win in combat with a 2/2 (which comprises most of Mind's creatures), and Stompy is probably the only deck with a mana curve low enough to play around land tax. It is also the fastest of the aggro decks. Fortuantely, it is probably also the aggro deck that is hurt the most in post-sideboard games.

Vs. Sligh/Stompy hybrid: 45-50% win ratio (28-30 game record)
This is essentially a Sligh deck that splashes green for some of green's better creatures, kird apes, and rancor. Again, gorilla shaman is troublesome for Mind, and hull breach is a beating. But this is not enough to change the fact that this is an aggro deck, which has to deal with all the brokenness that type 1 control has to access to.

Vs. Stacker/Funker: 60% projected win ratio (4-2 game record)
In addition to all the normal anti-aggro measures of Mind, Stacker/Funker has to deal with back to basics and devout witness. Goblin welder is as dangerous as ever, but they get named with meddling mage, keged, fire/iced, or simply ignored if I have tax/rack operational. Most of my feeling for the 60% win ratio comes from the results of playtesting an earlier, inferior incarnation of A Beautiful Mind against Stacker/Funker, which won about 55% of its games.

Notice that in all of the aggro matchups mentioned above, the post-sideboard games become more favorable for Mind, which has a more flexible inherent deck strategy, and a wider range of sideboard options.

Vs. Parfait: 65% projected win ratio
The 65% figure comes from the fact that an earlier, inferior version of Mind was able to beat Parfait 65% of the time, and I don't see much changing with the new version.

Vs. Miracle Grow: 35% projected win ratio (4-7 game record)
I'm not quite sure why Grow does so well against Mind, but it does. I'll need to look into this more if Grow becomes more popular in my area. For me, the matchup feels like the Keeper vs. Mind matchup, except that Grow is analogous to Mind and Mind is analogous to Keeper. Post-sideboard prospects are better, with the swords coming in, and again the overall deck flexibility becoming a factor.

Vs. Dragon: 20% win ratio (4-20-1 game record)
Dragon ape-smashs A Beautiful Mind. It has a lower mana curve than my deck does, and it's too fast anyway, making land tax irrelavant. A lone force of will or swords is easily duressed or unmasked. Meddling mages are only a partial solution, as Dragon has two types of cards to perform every useful function (entomb or buried alive? Animate dead or dance of the dead?), and devout witness is often too slow and requires keeping mana open, a huge problem for Mind. Granted, the match will get better post sideboard, but there's no getting around the fact that this is a losing battle for Mind.

Vs. other combo: I haven't done much testing, but I expect that the matchup against Academy will be bad. Besides that, other combo such as pandeburst or underworld dreams can be beaten about 55-60% of the times, judging from about 15 games played.

As you can see, A Beautiful Mind is an excellent deck, beating many of the top decks of type 1. If your metagame is filled with keeper and other blue-based control, play it and win. The deck can be made to excel against aggro also, if that's necessary (although with Dragon running around, any notion of a viable aggro deck goes out the window, so that's kinda pointless). As it stands, I designed the deck to win against control and split 50-50 with various aggro decks, so that's why the win percentages look as they do, but the deck itself is quite flexible in how it can be built, with the idea of tax+rack combined with cheap aggro-control elements being the winning formula.

Obviously, Dragon is the big problem. Mind was designed before the advent of the Dragon, and I have not yet adapted to this change in the metagame. Given that I pretty much don't need to worry about aggro (thanks to Dragon, and the fact that my metagame is aggro-light to begin with) and win against control anyway, I could afford to devote huge amounts of resources to fighting Dragon, but I still don't see it going better than 50-50. (In fact, I'm almost wondering if it would be better for me to spend my time improving Dragon, so that it would reach the point of total dominace, thereby forcing DCI to do something about it) Interestingly enough, the very fact that Dragon beats Mind is what puts Dragon on the map in my metagame. Without my deck, Dragon would simply be anotherpilethatlosestokeeper. dec.

But all in all, A Beautiful Mind is a new decktype that should be played in type 1. Type 1 really needs a deck that beats keeper; two of the negative stereotypes of type 1 - that it is a format requiring all the power cards, and that it is a stagnant format - is continually perpetuated by the fact that keeper is a deck that does not lose more than 50% against anything. (Incidentally, another negative stereotype, that type 1 is all about fast combo kills, is now much more true thanks to Dragon) Mind is the kind of deck that will be good for type 1 in general: It de-thrones keeper and othe blue-based control. It doesn't cost much to build (no duals, and all the power cards just improve the deck. They're not essential, like ancestral is essential to keeper). It's highly flexible and customizable (remember, tax-rack engine plus low mana aggro-control is the formula, and within that limit there is a wealth of possibilities). And most importantly, it's fun to play (who doesn't like drawing tons of cards? Who doesn't like swinging with fat 6/6 flyers? Who doesn't like the fact that the deck can be personalized?).

I'm looking forward to your feedback. But remember, any posts saying "That just ain't so", especially regarding the win percentages, should be backed up with about the same amount of testing as I have done. In other words, if you tell me that the win percentages against Stompy are actually 30-35% based on 20 games of testing, I'd be willing to accept that figure, since I haven't done much testing against Stompy. But if you tell me that I'll lose to Keeper 75% of the time, just because you can just tell that from looking at the decklist, I'll probably tell you to go do more testing, on par with the 70+ games that I have done.

Other than that, please respond with questions, comments, and suggestions. I appreciate your feedback.


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