Newark CA Tournament Report

[Fishhead]

I've been taking TnT to the local T1; but this week it was time to change up a bit.  There had been an interesting discussion on this board about using Power Artifact to give Keeper another plan of attack and a really wild sideboard idea out of the big tournament in Dulmen.  So I put together this deck, highly based on Gerhard Markus' 3rd place deck.

7 SoloMox
1 Grim Monolith
1 Zorb
1 D-Tutor
1 D-Edict
1 Mind Twist
1 V-Tutor
1 Y-Will
1 Ancestral
1 Braingeyser
1 FoF
4 FoW
3 Impulse
4 Mana Drain
1 Mis-D
2 Morphlings
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Power Artifact
1 Stroke
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan
1 Balance
1 D-Blow
3 Wasteland
1 Strip
1 LoA
15 Duals, tilted towards B/G

Side:
3 Duress
3 ReB
2 Krosan Reclaimation
4 Oath of Druids
2 Aura Fracture
1 Ghitu Fire

The major changes I made reflect my own personal playstyle; Landwise, I removed the Tolarian Academy for another Dual, I cut down to 2 Cities to reduce the pain, I tilted a bit towards red for REBs in the side.  I cut TimeTwister for Merchant Scroll as the only non-land change.  

In another thread, I advocated playing a deck for a while before you start making changes and I should remember to follow my own advice.    When combo'ing it would be really nice to have the Tolarian, and I wish I had left it in.  I always had enough mana to support the combo, but the Tolarian is probably necessary if you have to counter while setting up.

Round 1: Josh w/Sligh
I think I've played Josh in the last 5 tournaments straight.  Since there are generally 16-24 players, thats a little bit of an abberation.  He's usually playing something fast like RG or Sligh; his play is not perfect, but it is solid - I will not be getting a Bye here.  

Game 1: He gets down some low pressure creatures like Mogg Sentry and Grim Lavamancer while I set up my side of the board.  Though I have a fair amount of time I cant put together the combo and when I D-Tutor I notice that I really dont have any long term solutions (like Abyss) in the deck.  Since he has one card and I am at 9 life I dont want to Balance, I get the ZorB instead.  Its not enough and I die a couple turns later.  At this point, I was pretty disillusioned; this was definitely a game I would have won with a more standard Keeper build.  Well, maybe the deck is invulnerable after the sideboard.

Game 2: Side in the combo, side out Morphlings and slow cards.  I get to Balance+Zorb away everything, including his hand.  He topdecks better than I do, throwing down a Monkey and eating my Emerald & Saphirre while I draw Mana Drains.  (Not totally unexpected; Sligh has a strong topdeck game.  But I was hoping for a Pup or something rather than the Monkey.)  But, before the Monkey can go the whole way I draw the Oath and some mana and I combo him out.  I'd expect a Balance+Zorb game to be a bit more in my favor, but I am regaining confidence in the deck.  A traditional Keeper would have had more trouble after topdecking badly after Balance; but here Oath instantly solves my problems.

Here's how I did the combo, for reference.  Oath, throw deck into grave.  Krosan (G1 used) during upkeep putting Y-Will on top.  Draw Will and play (BG3 used).  Return Lotus +5 Moxes, Land or Sol Ring if necessary.  Now, if I have a Tolarian, I can return it and defend against 3xReB.  Since I dont, I end up using the Lotus+Saphirre to put UUUU in the pool, which leaves UU left for Mana Drains after Power Artifact.  That means I am undefended once I use U for Stroke, so generally I went for Ghitu Fire with UU floating.  Ghitu Fire isnt exactly tech though, it takes up a sideboard slot.  Tolarian is a more elegant solution.  

Now, am I missing another combo here?  This combo seems very vulnerable to certain things, which I will talk about later in the report.

Game 3: Sideboard the same; and drop a quick Oath to finish the game.  I Mana Drain something to give me the mana I need to go off a turn quicker than usual.

Round 2: Phoung.  (Sligh)
Phoung is a pretty good player in general, he's got an invite to Houston for whatever big Pro-Tour-ish event is being held there.  He's not so much into T1, though lately I have been giving him Shade-MonoB and hoping he will wreck some of the other tough players.

Game 1: He plays Mountain-Fanatic but fails to follow it up with a second land.  He casts another Fanatic, but I kept a 4 land hand which included Strip Mine.  I Strip away his land while Merchant-ing for Ancestral and rapidly accellerate away.

Game 2: He starts again with Mountain-Fanatic, then follows with more Mountains and 2 Cursed Scrolls.  He gets a Ball Lightning stuck in his hand, he's not willing to play into the Mana Drain(s) I obviously have.  I am not able to draw anything useful for the longest time, but I am in complete control of the game with a Zorb and thousands of lands on the table.  Eventually, I get the Tutor I need and hardcast the combo with tons of counter-backup (as he flashed me a ReB during one Scrolling.)

Now this game was interesting, when the classic Maher Oath decks became popular in Extended, Sligh reacted by refusing to put creatures on the board.  Viashino Sandstalker, Mogg Fanatic etc.  It was a strategy that was relatively successful, and I think it points out yet another weakness with the Combo-Oath-transform sideboard.

Round 3: Peter (TnT)
Last week Peter was playing an interesting RU Tubbies with the Mask combo thrown in.  I played him after that tourney and beat him 2-1 with the Survival powered TnT.  This week, his deck had Survival also.  

Game 1: My hand has no FoW, but I do have a Mind Twist and a couple Mana Drains.  I think about throwing it back, looking for Tutoring or FoWs, but keep.  He plays Land-Mox-Mox-Mask-Dreadnaught on the first turn.  I am able to Mind Twist away the rest of his hand by drawing the Lotus, but its already too late.  Wow.

Game 2: He keeps a slow start and gets a Lyrist on the board.  I feed it one Oath, then get a second one on the board.  I think he is locked out until he casts Memory Jar.  Hmmm.  Thats not so good for my plan.  Now I am digging to hardcast the combo or get the D-Blow.  I Impulse into the Tutor I need to finish the combo next turn, while he simultaneously decides to go for the win.  He breaks the Jar, and I draw crap.  He plays Survival and fetches an Angry Lryist to destroy the Oath.  But then I get my hand back and combo him out.  Whew.  

Game 3: I keep a little bit slow start.  He gets a Juggy on the table and hits me a couple times while I Mindtwist his hand away.  Genesis and Anger are both in the grave.  Hmm.   I get an Oath and think I am going to Combo him out when he makes a stylish play - cast Dread to bury both Juggy and Dread.  We're in topdeck mode and I topdeck 4 land.  He gets Survival and wrecks me, first with an Angry Lyrist to take care of the Oath and then with a stream of big creatures.  

We play again for fun, and he is winning when we need to go to the next round.  Looks like it could have been 1-3 in games.  Hmmm.

So what does this mean?  The Combo is supposed to be (in part) a reaction to TnT.  This hybrid TnT though has its own Combo which can be just as fast.  On the flip side, I've played the traditional Keeper v. TnT matchup tons of times from the TnT side and I really like my chances, so I'm not sure that the Mask version is necessarily more dangerous, just perhaps flashier.  

The Memory Jar also shows another unexpected weakness of the Oath plan.  Hmm, instant speed draw effects + empty library = instant loss.

Round 4: RB Land Destruction/Discard/Troll
I'm 2-1 and paired down, I face a deck that isnt very tuned and smash it in the way that Keeper does.  I see a little bit of that problem with Oath again; my opponent refuses to play creatures in the second game and I cant combo him out until I can Tutor up the pieces.    

The results of the tourney are 1) Peter (TnT+Mask), 2) Ryan (Enchantress), 3) me (Combo-Keeper), 4) Clint (UB control), 5) Andrew (MonoB-Void), 6) Max (Academy).   Andrew's did a nice report about his experiences, check that out as well for another perspective.

After the tourney I play the second place player who is with Enchantress for fun.  I generally win this matchup, though after sideboarding its pretty clear that Seal Of Cleansing causes a lot of problems, especially if you intend to cast the combo under Will.  You cannot afford to have the combo removed from the game after you have emptied your library, so a Seal immediately stops your forward progress.

Conclusions: Overall, I see a bunch of vulnerabilities with this particular sideboard.  I think that with surprise it is devastating, but with correct play and a week to prepare by your opponents, it has too many weaknesses to survive.  I will try something more like Carsten or Dozers build next time I play Keeper.

[cooberp]

What was the Enchantress build?

[Fishhead]

Quote What was the Enchantress build?

I dont have the decklist, but he was an aggro style GW Enchantress with Auratog, Rancor, Verduran, Argothian, StP, Concordant Crossroads and a big ton of enchantments.  

I felt I had a pretty favorable matchup against it with Keeper, but it did rip through the Aggro part of the field by regularly building 20/20+ Trampling creatures and swinging with them.  This is the same Enchantress player thats mentioned in one of the older ABM reports; I believe they split in the finals that time.

[cooberp]

that is such a bad deck!  if you want to play combo, has anyone heard of Academy?

then again, who's ever heard of sticking a random janky power artifact combo in keeper.  

fishhead, while i obviously think your analyses of the metagame (U/W random creatures is good, keeper loses to aggro) are misguided, you have a *very* strong tubbies deck.  Stick to what works and 0wn.

[Fishhead]

Quote that is such a bad deck!  if you want to play combo, has anyone heard of Academy?  

Note that the Enchantress is not my deck.  I (privately and quietly) agree that it is not at all a good overall deck, I mentioned that I "0wnz0rd" it in playtesting with Keeper after the tournament; it seems to have terrible problems with control.  But, in return, it smashes Aggro left and right so its an interesting metagame call.  

I did mention your report to him last week, leaving the option open if he wants to get more serious about the deck.

Quote ...U/W random creatures is good, keeper loses to aggro...

Mmm, thats a bit more extreme than what I said.  Keeper doesnt "lose" to Aggro, but it doesnt have a dominating matchup against anything but the worst Aggro decks.  Sligh and MonoB can be consistently competetive with Keeper and so can RG with a little splash of "hate".  My arguement was an extension of Miltons experience; dont take Keeper to a big tourney and expect to 7-0.  You are going to face a lot of common decks which have pretty equal chances to yours.  If you cant outplay your Aggro opponents you are going to take a quick 0-2-drop because Keeper isnt going to magically jump up and save you.

As for the ABM issue, I actually do have a lot of respect for ABM, though it would certainly be easier flame-wise to never speak of it again.    I dont think its anywhere near tuned in its current state, but I do expect it to do well enough to get by.  I think people will be surprised by its performance in the ToC; frankly beating Kaplans Sligh in Round 1 is more than most people on this board ever expected of it.  Tiny moral victory for ABM.

[NaClhv]

Fishhead: Nice report, as always.  I look at your deck and think to myself, "man, I'm glad I didn't play against that".  The surprise factor by itself would have probably given you 1 auto-win game out of the match against ABM.

But I agree with your conclusion overall;  the surprise can be devastating, but against a prepared opponent this deck seems to be almost certainly worse than keeper.  It's good to see people try out new decks, though.  I would play something different, too, if I didn't have to popularize ABM.  Are you looking for new decks to play, now that you've won the tournament once with German Tubbies?  

Oh, and a quick report on ABM:  you're right, ABM is not tuned completely.  But I think all the fundamentals of the deck is already in place, and any further tuning will be just variations on the overall theme and metagame calls, like adding another swords or an edict, or running the full set of moxen.  Of course, Legend will probably drop in sometime during the process, replace the werebears with pygmy hippos and add REB's in the side, and claim to have created "Legend Parfait" or some such.  I can see merit to all these changes, and I would like to test some of them, or say something about how the deck should be played in peculiar metagames.  But these tweaks are probably best done on the scale of the magic community as a whole, rather than on the individual scale.

Cooberp:  Don't you think you're suffering from a little bit of narrow perspective?  In other threads, you've even said things to the effect of "Gencon and Duelmen don't count because keeper doesn't win" and "NGNY $250 tournaments are the only example of a valid type 1 metagame."  Your views seem to be continually tilting towards favoring a particular deck and metagame, to the point where it has reached extreme levels

If anything, the evidence I see on this board, in terms of tournament reports and results from various well-know events, all verify what I and others have known and said for some time:  that keeper is only one of the many good decks in type 1, and that NGNY is a bad example of a "typical" metagame, let alone an ideal one.

So while the combo keeper is not something you'd see at NGNY, nor is it a standard keeper, it's a good thing to try against an unprepared field.  Kudos to those who try new things.  Double Kudos for they who recognize that the new thing is good only because its new.  But dismissing decks like that a priori because it's not "standard" points to a fault.

Also, the Enchantress deck above is not a bad deck.  It's as good as most other enchantress decks out there.  Nor is it a combo deck.  It's more like a control deck with a combo finish.  It has its share of problems, and also its share of strengths.  As such it certainly belongs in the large list of decks that can be legitimately played in type 1, even if it's not a "tier 1" deck.

[cooberp]

Fishhead--
Re: aggro enchantress.  Let's see...smashes aggro, struggles against control...interesting metagame.  What if they made a deck that smashes aggro *even more* and splits with control?  Oh wait, they did, it's called Academy.
As a dedicated player of Tier Two decks, I don't think a deck should have to be Tier One to be played (if so, we'd all be playing multicolor control).  I do think it has to be a metagame choice (beats this deck which I think will be present, loses to this deck which won't be played).  If there's a deck that has all the same matchup ratings except that the percentages are better, then you should play that.

Re: Keeper vs. aggro.  Keeper does have a strongly favorable (~70%) matchup against aggro decks designed to be played for a balanced metagame (i.e., that are also concerned with beating other aggro decks).  Played well, it splits with aggro decks metagamed against control (Stompy, 4-PoP Sligh, and Suicide).  I maintain that Keeper and OSE are alone in T1 because they also beat combo while splitting with metagame aggro, while metagame aggro loses to combo.  I completely agree that Keeper is not the kind of deck that will typically 7-0 a field.  It is, however, the deck with no bad matchups, which makes it the best deck in the format.

"ABM" needs to decide what it wants to do and run a logical decklist of optimal cards aimed to achieve that goal.  Tax/Rack with counters, B2B, random utility creatures vaguely aimed at beatdown, and little search is *not* a deck.  It is a pile that may occasionally win games based on drawing random broken cards at the right time.

NaClhv-
I didn't say they didn't count because Keeper didn't win.  Keeper probably doesn't even win the majority of NG tournaments.  I said that those tournaments are not indicative of the T1 metagame because MANY of the best decks are not present in optimized builds played by the best players.  TnT is a great deck, obviously; I'm working on a version myself.  But just because it has had success against Keeper running Power Artifact doesn't mean it Beats Keeper.  Just because Keeper without white and running Blood Moon lost to aggro at Gen Con (uh...duh) doesn't mean that Keeper is a Tier Two deck.  I said that the only metagame I could vouch for as indicative of the metagame was NG $250's because that's the only place I know of where the best deck is played by the best players, and therefore where matchup percentages can be appropriately assessed.  This doesn't mean that tech can't emerge elsewhere; obviously, TnT did.  But it DOES mean that Keeper LOSES to metagame aggro or that we are in a new metagame where Miracle Blo dukes it out with Power Artifact and Zoo for the throne--or, god forbid, the overpowered ABM/Ducktape/ICT/Doomsday T4.  You have to be realistic.

Call aggro enchantress whatever you want, but it has all of Academy's matchups, just way way way worse.

[Fishhead]

Quote If there's a deck that has all the same matchup ratings except that the percentages are better, then you should play that.

Again, it is not my deck.  I will defend it one more time; but be assured that I agree with you generally.  Heres why this deck gets played: the guy who plays it enjoys playing rogue decks, he's very much into the 'fun' aspect of T1 rather than the competetive aspect.  As such, he enjoys swinging with a 37/37 Auratog and, conversely, he would not enjoy playing a technical deck like Academy at all.  Also Academy requires the power, Enchantress does not.  

Is this the spirit of a Pro-Tour player?  Nope; but, frankly, I have more fun playing him than I probably would on the Pro-Tour and I'm not going to do more than point out that there are some other Enchantress builds out there.  If he cares, he will look for them.  But I suspect he does not care at all.