U/R Phid and GenCon

[Milton]

Team Showercap, consisting of Herby, Rubonia and myself saddled up for the 10 hour drive to Indianapolis this year.  We live in northern Wisconsin, so clearly moving GenCon was a pain in the ass.  Anyway, we head down and try to design a deck along the way, mostly just to pass the time.  

-We know that Hulk, Keeper and Combo will be there in force and we decide to run a mana-denial U/R Phid deck.  

-Shoreline Ranger seemed to be a very nice option as a fair threat and a good way to smooth out the mana base.  

-Bloodmoon is always good at GenCon.

-Misdirection wouldn't be very good this year.

-We really thought that Mana Leak was going to be a phenomonal card amid the fast combo decks.  In fact, we decided early on that Mana Leak, coupled with early Moxes, was more powerful than Mana Drain.

Here is the deck we decided on for the early tournaments:

The Showercap.dec 1.0

Mana - 25
4 Waste
1 Strip
5 Moxes
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus
4 Fetchlands
4 Volcanic
1 Library
4 Islands

Blue - 26
4 Force of WIll
4 Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Morphling
1 Shoreline Ranger
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral
4 Ophidian
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Gush

Red - 3
3 Mox Monkey

Artifact / Other - 6
1 Masticore
3 Fire/Ice
2 Powder Keg

Sideboard:
3 Bloodmoon
4 Energy Flux
4 Red Blast
1 Fire/Ice
2 Kegs
1 Stifle

The deck proved to be very resiliant.  Rubonia (Joel Wood) ran this deck in one tournament (60+ players) and did very well.  I tried it as well and found it to have some weaknesses.  While it was great at controling the board, there were times when I couldn't draw threats.  Also, there were times when I kept drawing counters when I needed answers or card drawing.  Often I would hold Shoreline Ranger to use as a threat, but it is a pretty poor threat.  After a 4-3 record in my first tournament with this deck I decided:

-It needs more card drawing.  4 Brainstorm, 4 Ophidian, Gush and Ancestral isn't enough.

-Shoreline Ranger sucks the ass end of a goat.  It's a bad threat and it only puts land into your hand, not into play, making it a very sucky card.

-Sol Ring wasn't necessary in this deck.

-Gorilla Shaman was the MVP.  The mana denial aspect worked very well.

-Cunning Wish needed to be in this deck.

-A little too much permission, a little too much board control.

After careful thought and playtesting we decided to tweak the deck.  

Here is the final version that Joel (Rubonia) and I played during the world championships.

The Showercap.dec 1.1

Mana - 25
4 Wastelands
1 Strip
5 Moxes
1 Lotus
5 Fetchlands
4 Volcanic Islands
4 Islands
1 Library

Blue - 28
4 Accumulate Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Ophidian
1 Ancestral
1 TimeWalk
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
3 Mana Drain
2 Cunning Wish
1 Morphling

Red - 3
3 Gorilla Shaman

Other - 4
1 Masticore
3 Fire/Ice

Board:
1 Gush
1 Stifle
1 Misdirection
1 Dominate
1 Fire/Ice
1 Psionic Blast
1 Blue Blast
2 Bloodmoon
3 Red Blast
3 Energy Flux

Rationale for Changes:

-We decided on Accumulate Knowledge as an additional card drawer.  Intuition would have been nice, but following a long discussion and a few hours of playtesting we decided that Intuition was not needed.  4 Accumulate, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ophidian, 1 Ancestral with Gush in the board gave us access to a very good card drawing engine.  Also, Fire/Ice cycles against combo decks.

-We decided to cut 1 Mana Drain, going down to 11 counterspells in favor of the increased card drawing.  Mana Leak was more important than Drain.

-We decided on 3 Fire/Ice main and one in the board to maximize efficiency.  This was a good call at GenCon, but this was a metagame decision.

-4 Phids, 3 Shaman, 1 Masticore and 1 Morphling for the kill.  This provided us with a perfect number of efficient threats.

Our playtesting showed the following

V. Stacks we had a very favorable match-up, unless the Stacks deck went off with the rare broken hand.  Energy Flux was phenomonal.  We played about 10 games and Stacks won maybe 2.  It came down to the well played Wasteland and timley Gorilla Shaman, along with the solid card drawing.

V. Hulk we had an even match-up.  The explosive card drawing of Hulk was scarry, but, once again, a well played Wasteland and pressure from an early Ophidian would help.  We also knew that we could use our AK's favorably.  Still, it was a toss-up.

V. Sligh we had a nice advantage with card drawing, cheap blockers (Gorilla Shaman) and efficient removal in the form of Fire/Ice.

V. Suicide ....  This was a tough one.  Suicide is highly under-rated right now.  They have the explosive opening and can disrupt enough to put you behind early.  On the other hand, they can just crap out with a slower opening hand.  Fire/Ice is a good card.  Wastelands and Shaman are bad.  It was an even match, maybe slightly in our favor.

V. TnT we had a significant disadvantage.  But, who plays TnT anymore anyway?  

V. Keeper we had a very significant advantage.

V. Combo we felt we had the permission to survive the first couple of turns and establish control.  Gorilla Shaman and Wasteland were going to be very important.

We didn't think about decks like Dragon, Fish or Mask, decks which did very well in the tournaments.

In the end Joel went 6-2, placing 13th.  I went 4-4, losing to Stacks (he went broken fast, but it was close), Hulk (I resolved a Bloodmoon, but he had one of his islands), TnT (very close games) and a Rector Tendrils deck.  Every game was close except Hulk, who crushed me with very broken draws.

In retrospect, this is a very solid deck.  It isn't hosed, it doesn't stall out and it is pretty easy to play.  When it wins it is phenomonal, like old school Keeper.  Often times you have two or three Ophidians in play and a Gorilla on the board while your opponent has no lands or moxes in play and you are in beat-down mode.  It doesn't crap out on you like Combo can and it is very resiliant.  It will be beaten by fast brokenness, but that has always been a weakness of control decks.  This deck is more resiliant that most others in this respect.

GenCon proved to be a learning experience.  I talked to just about everyone from TMD that was there including:

-Freddie, a very nice guy and very, very good player.
-Mykeatog who proved to have very simmilar opinions about Null Rod and Suicide and was probabally the funniest guy there.
-Shcokwave, who was very gracious in defeat and who truly dominated the convention with his rogue deck.
-Phantom Tape Worm, who upheld the honor of Gay Fish and was an all around great guy.
-Crazy Carl, who was also very gracious in victory and is a very good ambassador for the format.
-TracerBullet, who talked with me for hours about the virtue of Nether Void and the importance of adding green.  Also, I spent a bunch of time bitching about the format with TB, which was very fun.
-The Chicago guys, Mattdog and Hspecter.  Mattdog was among the elite players at the convention.  He won with ABM, a phenomonal feat.  
-MoxLotus is a very innovative Ankh Sligh player.  Cutting down on direct damage to run Vandals was a great metagame call.
-TripleS was probabally the best player in the final 8 of the T1 Champoinships.  He played a very complicated deck which has some bad match-ups, but he played that deck very well and I was very impressed with his skill.
-Also, it was great to see Matt Smith again, who is banned from this site.

The Wisconsin guys did very well.  Ian placed in the top eight with Goblins.  Matt D finished in 11th with Suicide, Rubonia placed 13th with U/R phid and Team Showercap member Herby, who spent more time in the shitter thanks to White Castle, finished in 25th with Null Rod Suicide.  Keep in mind that three of these four players have limited access to power cards and that prizes were awarded for the top 32.

Lastly, here is what I learned at GenCon:
-Splash a secondary color in any deck.  Goblins splashed Blue for Walk and Ancestral, Suicide can splash red easily.  It takes nothing with Fetchlands to splash.
-Mana denial is a very good option in T1.
-Most of the Paragons are nice people in person.  They deserve respect.
-There are 12-15 competitive decks that can win a tournament at any given time.
-Random Miser is a 8 year old trapped in the body of a 30 year old.
-People in Indianapolis have southern accents.  WTF?
-Nobody plays creature control anymore, allowing Goblin Decks, Suicide and Sligh to do well.
-Friday 10:00 AM Type I tournament had 70 people.  The Type II tournament that started at the same time had 22 people.
-Is Stifle good?  The jury is still out.

That's all.\n\n

[MarkPharaoh]

Good read, but do you find 1 Morphling 1 Masticore and maybe the Shoreline to be enough?  Having one in the opening hand isn't too stellar and sometimes they can simply elude your card drawing.  Also, how did you SB against the higher tier decks?  After Game1, would you take out AK's against Hulk if you played one during the first game since they will know that you have them?

[Rico Suave]

Quote (Milton @ Aug. 21 2003,21:05)Lastly, here is what I learned at GenCon:
-Splash a secondary color in any deck.  Goblins splashed Blue for Walk and Ancestral, Suicide can splash red easily.  It takes nothing with Fetchlands to splash.
-Mana denial is a very good option in T1.

Hmm.  Isn't that rather ironic?  

Otherwise, congratulations, and good read.

[Smmenen]

Yeah, good read. Thanks.

Steve

[jpmeyer]

Fact or Fiction?

[Zherbus]

As far as *I* know, Matt Smith isn't banned.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Milton, good read, and ironic in that me and some of team hadley have been tinkering with Urphid lately.

I'd also like to mention that I played Urphid at the Friday and Saturday (champs) tournaments at Gencon.  Here is my build with differences in parentheses:

Mana - 25
4 Wastelands
1 Strip
5 Moxes
1 Lotus
1 Sol Ring (fetch #5)
4 Fetchlands
4 Volcanic Islands
4 Islands
1 Library

Blue - 26
3 Brainstorm
4 Ophidian
1 Ancestral
1 Fact or Fiction (brainstorm #4)
2 Future Sight (AK 1&2)
1 TimeWalk
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak
4 Mana Drain (mana leak #4)
1 Misdirection (AK 3)
1 Cunning Wish
1 Morphling
1 metagame spell, for gencon it was stifle, in hadley its misd#2 (AK 4)

Red - 2
2 Gorilla Shaman

Other - 5
2 powder keg (shaman #3 & masticore)
3 Fire/Ice

Board: (completely different)
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Capsize
1 Shattering Pulse
2 Control Magic
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Red Blast
3 Bloodmoon


Overview:
I also thought that Urphid's consistency and ease of play would be good for a large tournament of players who, on average, could be better players than I am.  Its strong counter-base, resilient manabase, and ability to play the mana-denial game itself, also made it ideal for gencon.

Card Choices:

Mana Base:
Nearly identical, except that brainstorm helped thin your deck i guess, which made the brainstorms and AK's more potent.  I ran sol ring for my more expensive Fact or Fiction and Future Sight...oh yeah, and because its fuckin' broken.

Most upper eschelon decks are more explosive than Urphid.  I wanted to be able to drop 1st turn ophids/bloodmoon/future sights as often as possible.

Creature Base:
I never considered Shoreline Ranger, as I find he is just too weak for the limited spots I had.  Masticore is a nice catch-all against aggro, but I couldn't tutor for him, so I knew I'd have to rely on powder kegs and control magic (from the board).  Also, I've never liked masticore since he usually gives you the illusion that you're winning until he gets killed and you have no hand.  I only ran 1 morphling, the biggest difference in our build being that I ran 2x future sight as win conditions 2&3 and the card draw engine to replace your AK (more on this later).

4 Ophids is obvious.  I settled on 2x Gorilla Shaman, as I figured in a long game against control I'd always see one, but didn't have to in a short game against aggro.  That, and they're dependent on my opponent actually playing their artifact mana, which a good tendrils player often won't.

Counter Base:
Pretty similar, except that I'd probably run the 4th mana leak in the metagame spot if were to do it again.  I agree that when building for gencon i figured misd wouldn't be that good.  However, almost everybody plays ancestral recall, and that was reason enough for me to maindeck one, with cunning wish as a potential #2.  That, and many were claiming suicide as the aggro foil to the expected metagame.  The 4th mana drain makes sense for me since it accelerates my more expensive spells...oh yeah, and its fuckin' broken.

Rest of the Deck:

The biggest difference is in our choice of card draw, which was obviously missing from the deck compared with other control and combo-control decks.  I was basically looking for something to make up for the fact that I can't run Yawgmoth's Will.  I've been in love with Future Sight since it was printed, and with all of Urphid's acceleration  (at least in my build), it can easily get out a turn 2-3 future sight.

There have been many games against aggro decks where I was able to drain something and drop an early future sight.  This is game over against a deck that can't REB/disenchant it quickly.

Most people look at the single cunning wish, and figure that i'm bastardizing my sb.  I consider it a necessary evil, since I'd probably be running capsize as a catch all if i didn't.  Without the cunning wish as general utility, I feel like I need opening hand Force of Wills since a first turn humility/underworld dreams/..."insert janky enchantment that hates me" is game over.  Since Urphid usually doesn't side much in/out anyway, running one-of's works out pretty well.

Regarding the mana-denial aspect of this deck, its easy to underestimate what a good draw engine can do with 5 strips and shamans.  Round 3 of T1 Champs against the Stax build that made T8 (I was his only loss in swiss, bad player or not), both games I had him at zero permanents for an extended period of time.  More than a few bystanders quipped about who was really playing the prison deck.  I had similar results against control decks and academy in other rounds.  Fear the LD.

As far as matchups, my results were similar to milton's, with the glaring exception of suicide.  My Misdirections and Future Sights were huge against them.  I didn't lose a match to suicide (5-0) the entire time at gencon.  Also, I find that control matchups (even keeper) often come down to who has the opening hand that best allows them to resolve big draw spells.

Anecdotal: I played Ruboonia the last round (8) of the T1 Championship on Saturday at Gencon.  He was a cool guy, and wiped the floor with me both games.  Since I realized after round 7 I couldn't make T8, I was pretty indifferent about the match.  His AK's may have given him a slight advantage, but mostly it was that he cast ancestral in the first 3 turns both games.  It sounds simplistic, but I find thats often the case with control mirrors that don't last more than 7 turns.


On Urphid in the general meta:

The points brought up before about its consistency, redundancy, and ease of play are its biggest advantages.  It can board in the brick-house that is bloodmoon, and it packs 10+ counterspells.  However, its ability to deal with resolved permanents is only slightly better than mono-u, and it still doesn't run yawgmoth's will.  In an increasingly broken environment, its harder and harder to be a pure control deck.\n\n

[Eastman]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Aug. 22 2003,07:50)I ran sol ring for my more expensive Fact or Fiction and Future Sight...oh yeah, and because its fuckin' broken.

Well said.

[Matt The Great]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Aug. 22 2003,06:50)Most people look at the single cunning wish, and figure that i'm bastardizing my sb.  I consider it a necessary evil, since I'd probably be running capsize as a catch all if i didn't.  Without the cunning wish as general utility, I feel like I need opening hand Force of Wills since a first turn humility/underworld dreams/..."insert janky enchantment that hates me" is game over.  Since Urphid usually doesn't side much in/out anyway, running one-of's works out pretty well.

Nevinyrral's Disk?\n\n

[Smmenen]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Aug. 22 2003,04:50) In an increasingly broken environment, its harder and harder to be a pure control deck.

Well said.  But do you realize the how interesting that is?  Control is supposed to be the answer to degenerate comboness.  Instead, the best answer is more degeneracy.

Steve

[Grand Inquisitor]

@matt the great, nevinryal's disk is even more cumbersome than cunning wish, and it doesn't pitch to FoW.

@smennen, the issue of combo in t1 is something i've been exploring in great detail since my emerald alice build became ineffective.  i do believe that the agglomeration of deck-building talent that this site and other phenomena in the vintage world have created has begun to show that the 'speed of offense' is faster than the 'speed of defense' (to use Rob Hahn terminology).

I don't want to get into it too much on this thread, but

1) more potent disruption
2) multi-angle attacks
3) the much-feared approach to 'critical mass'

have all made control's job a lot more difficult.  I would say with Hulk and Urphid, blue based control is still on top, but as someone pointed out, control actually has to pack sideboard cards for combo now.

[Akuma (gio)]

I placed third at the Friday night Type 1 in GenCon with Urphid, I would have won the whole thing but I ended up drawing my very last match against Keeper. I had a Blood Moon on the board and a full grip to protect it and my opponent had squat, but time was called.

This deck is solid. But it is getting a bit harder to execute your game plan with a control deck in the Type 1 environment. I totally agree with stressing the mana denial portion of Urphid, without it, you will eventually be overwhelmed by all the bombs most of the top tier decks have.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Quote Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Aug. 22 2003,04:50)
 In an increasingly broken environment, its harder and harder to be a pure control deck.

Well said.  But do you realize the how interesting that is?  Control is supposed to be the answer to degenerate comboness.  Instead, the best answer is more degeneracy.

Steve

Well lets look at this in another way: Which control-deck was considered the strongest for a long time? Keeper, not counting 4 FoF blue. What defines Keeper, or better, sets it apart from all the other control-decks? It's more broken. (ok, it also has more options for solutions, but as long as I play keeper, I still win at least half my games by the brokeness of Balance or Will)
What you are talking about is only a fact that is becoming more obvious because the general power-level of T1 decks is rising. Both Hulk and Shining play like control decks for some part of the game, but both of them just go broken at one point. This is exactly what Keeper does since a long time ago, it just didn't do it in the same uber-broken fashion.
To make this more clear:
Keeper draws cards, takes control of the game, casts Will/Mind Twist/Geyser..., draws another bunch of cards and finishes you of with Morphling. Beat down by Superman, looks like typical control.
Tog draws a bunch of cards, takes control of the game and all out of sudden drops a critter and kills you next turn-> looks more comboish and broken.
Shining takes control of the game and suddenly goes of like some combo-deck, finishing you after some 15 minute monster turn. This really looks broken.
The main statement I'm making is that the way those games were going has exactly been that way for a long time. It's just that the finishing brokeness that defined multicolor control has gotten faster and more broken and is more recognizable because of that (you just don't drop that Fattie any more to kill but you drop a comboesque thing, like tog).
Some article once said, that control would become superflous, if a combo-kill ever became small enough to be put into the skeleton of a control deck. Psychatog and Tendrils/Sight do exactly that. They take a control-deck but instead of taking a slow-but-secure kill-condition like a typical control-deck does, they use a combo-kill-card that fills their needs as a single turn of control is now enough to kill. It's just a lot easier to take control for one turn than to keep it up over an extended period of time.
So I have to postulate while the point where that combo-piece is small enough was 2 in extended (No-Necro Trix), it's 1 in Type 1. Welcome to the evolution some pro predicted at least a year ago.
As a sidenote, UrPhid is kept viable because it has it's own 1 card-kill against most decks in the environment. Blood Moon. It might not kill but it's a complete lock for most opponents. (just to show what happens if the "combo" doesn't work right:

Quote ... loosing to..., Hulk (I resolved a Bloodmoon, but he had one of his islands)

)
In OUR testing at least UrPhid won ~80% of it's games because of Blood Moon and had far from great matchups against just about every good deck that didn't use to many non-basics.
I have to admit though we a) tested a different build (really anti combo and control, so Sligh was bad for us) b) didn't test the archetype really thoroughly, as we had some other decks we wanted to test with.
The final comment of Kim who played it (and took 3rd in Dülmen loosing only to GoblinSligh) was something like:
This is a Blood Moon deck. You usually win because you can drop Blood Moon protected by countermagic. Otherwise you loose.
And, as I said, we already did cut down on anti-aggro cards, which should make the control & combo matchups, where Moon is good, even better.


/edit: Sorry for kinda hijacking this thread, what I said just came pouring out of my fingers when I started writing the answer.\n\n

[Matt The Great]

I fail to see how Disk is less cumbersone than Wish->Capsize. It's not like Disk is useless against non-enchantment cards.\n\n

[Milton]

Thanks for the replies.  

Responses:

@MarkP, I feel that I have plenty of threats.  3 Shaman, 4 Phids, a Masticore and a Morphling are plenty of threats.  Also, I can Dominate out of the sideboard.  As for sideboarding, I take out a Shaman for a Fire/Ice against most aggro decks.  I pull 3 Fire/Ice, one AK and a Mana Drain against Hulk for 3 Red Blasts and 2 Bloodmoon.  This allows the Cunning Wish for AK if needed.  Against Stacks the 3 Energy Flux come in for 1 Masticore, 1 Fire/Ice and something else.  Against combo, simmilar to Stacks with 2 Bloodmoon 2 Red Blast for 1 Masticore and 3 Fire/Ice.

@JP, Fact or Fiction was too slow in testing.  What to cut to fit it in?

@Zherbus

Quote As far as *I* know, Matt Smith isn't banned.

Well, clearly you would know and I must have been mistaken.  I was under the impression that he was banned.

@Grand Inquisitor

Our decks are very, very different.  Future Sight is a bold play but we were looking for fast card drawing to help us through the mid game after the stall out.  We ditched Powder Keg after seeing Null Rod everywhere.  Sol Ring went out because we wanted to be able to Leak off a Mox-Land.  I understand why you run Sol Ring, but after cutting it it wasn't missed at all.

As for the Masticore, I will always play a Masticore in any deck packing 4 Phids.  The synergy between those two cards is awesome.

It's interesting to see your take on the U/R Phid v. Stacks match-up.  A great many people were steadfast in their disagreement with me about that match-up.  In my testing, Phid owns Stacks.  It's nice to see that you had a simmilar experience.  The new mono-red Stacker with Pyrostatic Pillars is a bad match-up for Phid, though.

@Matt the Great

Disk and Keg cannot be counted on to clear the board anymore.  Null Rod is just everywhere now.  Also, Disk is very slow and has some limitations.  I found the 3 Fire/Ice main with Cunning Wish for answers and 11 counterspells that it isn't too hard to keep the board clear.

@Mon, you make some very good points, but T1 is all about your metagame, not the metagame.  In my last tournament I played against a very fast Goblin deck, two Suicide decks, Fish and Stacker 3.  How good is Bloodmoon with those match-ups?  How good is Null Rod in the current meta?  Holy shit, that card is a house in the hands of a good Suicide deck.  It seems to me that the environment has swung towards combo, but combo is still easily disrupted with simple single card strategies.  Sure, it can just "go off", but it can stall out just as easily.  And, Keeper, Hulk and the Shining all run a very fragile mana base that is easily disrupted.

As for critical mass, we will reach that point when there is a very inexpensive two card combo of one color that isn't touched by Null Rod or graveyard hate.

[Matt The Great]

I didn't say Disk was a great choice, but he said he wanted a card to be "general utility" and "a catchall" to deal with "janky enchantments that hate me" and Disk would seem a lot better for that role.