Arena League: A type 1 experiment

[ELD]

Several months ago I heard of a type 1 arena league not more than an hour from my house.  The people who actually attended it explained how the format worked to me and I was intrigued.  One plays a single game vs. an opponent.  A win gets 3 points, a loss gets 1 point.  One must always play the available player, but may not play the same person twice in a row.  When the dust settles at the end of two hours, the person with the most points wins.  

The purpose of this post is to brainstorm on ideas for a format breaking meta smashing deck.  I'm certain that the "best deck" will change over time.  It has shifted 3 times since I've been playing and I anticipate it will continue to shift in the up coming months.  The most important thing is being able to play out the games very quickly.  If the deck cannot finish at least 20 games in 2 hours then it is not viable.  

I heard that the meta was a lot of goblins and other aggro decks that people thought were fast.  I also gathered that counter magic and disruption really wouldn’t be a large part of the meta as the  decks are built for maximum speed.  I theorized that one must play a deck that either wins or loses very quickly.  A spoils of the vault style deck that either kills itself or kills the opponent as close to turn 1 as possible.  With this knowledge of the meta, I threw together belcher built for speed.    

Arena Belcher

4 tinder wall
4 elvish spirit guide
4 dark ritual
4 land grant
7 solomoxen
3 chromatic sphere
1 chrome mox
1 lotus petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 mana vault
1 bayou
1 tropical island
1 channel

4 brainstorm
4 spoils of the vault
4 goblin charbelcher
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 time twister
1 windfall
1 tinker
1 memory jar
1 demonic tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 mystical tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 yawgmoth's bargain
1 wheel of fortune
1 lim-dul's vault

My first effort had regrowth which was cut for the 4th brainstorm.  I played that version the first week and set a record 69 points in 23 games.  After cutting regrowth (the above list) I managed 63 points with 3 losses.  Good enough for the win, but the pension for fumbling i.e. killing myself with spoils or hitting land number 2 started to rear it's ugly head.  Week 3 I ran the same list, but multiple fumbles were not the only problem.  The meta at this point began to shift towards combo.  Most of the people who were running aggro started to assemble fluctuator, mana severance belcher, and other budget combo decks.   As the field shifted towards combo the better players made adjustments.  The league began to adapt in a way that posed a problem for my belcher list.  People playing dragon started running force of will.  I played against force/dragon and lost every game due to force.  Force either bought enough time or totally destroy my deck.  Clearly something needed to be done.


While testing for the following week I built dragon.  It did win the previous week, so I felt I needed to understand what I was missing.  I gold fished and was not convinced it was the way to go.  My problem with the builds I was testing was the getting the combo assembled.  The cards available
were as follows:  Buried alive, Careful study, Thirst for knowledge, Intuition, Compulsion.  Not owning Bazaar’s stopped me from building an optimal list and I never really got past that.  Careful study/TFK rely on having a dragon in hand and are not reusable.  Buried alive’s sorcery speed  is just asking to lose the mirror match and can be slow when facing other combo decks.  Intuition seemed very solid, as it is instant speed and can get any combo piece needed.  Compulsion seemed great,
but the idea is to win games ASAP and move on.  The intuition/compulsion plan seemed solid, but knowing that bazaar would be better really lessened my opinion of the deck.  

With the knowledge that whatever dragon I built would be sub optimal firmly in my head, I decided I needed to try something different.  
If the decks were becoming more controlish, perhaps they would slow down a bit and allow for a aggro combo deck to challenge them.  FCG was one option, but I opted for a list that I hadn’t dusted off in quite a while.  Sadly on my way to that weeks league, my car broke down.  Without the full time limit to test, it was difficult to gauge the effectiveness of my deck.  

I decided on my pet elf deck that I already had assembled.  

Old School Elves

4 llanowar elves
4 fynhorn elves
4 elvish lyrist
4 quirion ranger
4 priest of titania
4 sylvain messenger
4 elvish champion
4 deranged hermit
4 coat of arms
4 overrun

4 gaea's cradle
4 windswept heath
1 crop rotation
1 black lotus
1 mox emerald
9 forests

I'd liken this deck to food chain goblins.  Both often win on turn 3, and anything past turn 5 would be considered a fumble.  With lotus it can win on turn 2.  They both do well vs.  other aggro strategies.   The fact that this list is more vulnerable to mana drain really isn’t an issue as it’s not a card that in any way defines arena the meta.  Of course, both elves and fcg lose to really fast combo badly.  The field at this point was mostly aggro with 3 or 4 of the better players running combo.  I reasoned that I'd win my matches Vs. aggro and hopefully be able to steal some games vs. the combo players as they seemed to be slowing down the deck designs to go for more stability.  That is what happened and I was hopeful for the next week.  

For the elves' encore week I added tropical islands, ancestral recall, time walk, and null rod.  I played against dragon several times, each game opening with a turn 1 lyrist.  Each game I lost, all but one with me only getting one turn.  The games vs. aggro were not a problem.  When I played against control my threat density and ability to cast multiple bombs in a turn were enough to carry me to victory.  When the dust settled I was behind the pack by a slim margin, but I was not
encouraged at all.  It seemed to me that aggro combo was not at all the way to go.  Even the slowed down lists were too fast for me to handle.

One thing that started to happen here was the original strategy needed revising.  It was no longer about playing as many games as you can and just try and win most of them.  Losses were really starting to make the difference.  The top contenders seemed to be getting in around the same number of games.  The real issue was how to go close to undefeated without compromising the number of games played.  

Dragon and belcher being the two top contenders, I decided I needed to come up with something that would have a strong control element.  The problem of course, is one of speed.  My ideas were GAT and Hulk.  I'm not currently impressed with the GAT lists floating around.  I thought about running a list with 4 force, 4 duress, 4 stifle but moved on.  Perhaps night's whispers will change things, but since gush left, I just think hulk is stronger.  I play a lot of tog, it has won me a bunch of moxen/cash.  I play it very differently from most everyone I know.  I go entire
tournaments without ever casting berserk.  My usual list is built with the idea of dragging the game out and winning through humongous card advantage.  I've always snickered when people talk about tog being best played as a combo deck.  It's that kind of play that allows a deck like
control slaver to have a favorable match-up vs. tog.  It seemed it was time to join the ranks of tog players who actually cast berserk.  

Arena Tog

3 tog
3 cunning wish
3 intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Gush
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor

1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
5 moxen
1 black lotus
1 mana crypt
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine

SB only wished for as there is no game 2
berserk
smother
diabolic edict
submerge
vampiric tutor
lim-dul's vault
oxidize
naturalize
mana short
stifle
coffin purge
misdirect
contagion
blue elemental blast
echoing truth

I wanted ensnare as it's an answer to a swamped board that berserk sometimes can't handle.  Sadly I couldn't find one so I had to go without it.  

I went 18 game w/o a loss for 54 points.  It was enough to win the event, but the total points is down from where I'd like to see it.  I played against goblins/fcg quite a bit.  One match cunning wish for contagion coupled with a strip mine destroyed a really solid.   For the rest of the goblin matches, the speed of this tog list was too combo-like for them to handle.  The combo deck were excellent matches, as duress and force were enough to buy time for me to win the game.  When I played against control the card drawing was too much for them to handle.  

Well, I’d be interested to see what people have for ideas to break this meta.  Right now it’s dragon and belcher at the top.  FCG, sligh and weaker combo decks like fluctuator make up the middle tier.  The younger kids who are still learning the basics play random aggro.  There is more than enough aggro to encourage people to run suicide oath.  Afinity, and sui are always present as well.  It seems that alot of the decks have shifted back from budget combo to aggro as they weren't having any success.  

I’ll keep running tog until something else comes up that could be better.  It allows me to at least hand out some losses to the combo players who are my toughest competition while avoiding the combo mirror match which is usually all about randomness.  The ability to win any match, w/o having to rely on a hoser such as tomad's crypt or null rod is very solid as it lessens the likeliness of of dead cards.

[Tempe]

If you've got combo with FoW and aggro out there, why not play Ravager? Its fast enough to race combo and definitely aggro, but because it has an aggro element, it isn't really stopped by FoW. The only thing you would have to worry about it is Null Rod and Gorilla Shaman, which don't seem that prevalent in your meta.

[Nefarias]

Of course, both elves and fcg lose to really fast combo badly

It seemed to me that aggro combo was not at all the way to go

Each game I lost, all but one with me only getting one turn.

In his discussion of his Elves deck, he said that it reliably goes off turn three, and can do turn two. That seems pretty on par with Ravager, unless there's something I don't know about. Can Ravager handle a turn one Belcher activation?

[ELD]

I am very interested in the intruder alarm version of ravenger, but not for arena league.  The fact that it can just go infinate reminds me of FCG's combo.  One thing about the list I'm not sure about is the lack of disciple of the vault.  As long as you're comboing with a skull clamp or a solem simalicrum you don't need it.  Since I have not built it yet, I'll assume it would not really helpl the list that much, but I will test it once I throw it together.

I aggree that ravenger would not be an excellent choice for that meta.  It is not fast enough to race combo in any way.  While it would do well vs other aggro, combo aggro and control decks, the real issue is having game vs Belcher and Dragon.

[Blackplague]

The best deck to play in arena imo is Fluctuator. It wins on turn one or two every game and its fun to play. No one who is smart will play with counters so your home free. I reck ass every time i play it in arena ill post a list as soon as i can.
Luis

[Ephraim]

Is the principle of the game to play quickly, since it's better to accumulate many match-wins in as short a time as possible than to accumulate a small number of match-wins with the greatest win/loss ratio?

[Machinus]

Think about it like this: If you play vs. belcher and lose three times in a row, you still get three points, the same score as if you played one longer game and won.

[goober]

You should play the quickest sui deck evar, and just try to get up to 70 games in one sitting.

Did you think about Draw7, going off takes a little longer than Belcher and Dragon, but I bet it would work more effectivly if people are playing FoW more often.

[Shaman]

I would run something similar to this:

1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Underground Sea
1 Chrome Mox
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Library Of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Ritual
1 Memory Jar
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Necropotence
4 Impulse
1 Frantic Search
2 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Rebuild
4 Force Of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
4 Brainstorm
1 Windfall
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Wheel Of Fortune
1 Enlightned Tutor

This deck should have some duress, but maybe you can cut 'em for impulse in order to gold fish one turn earlier if your meta is pure aggro. It gold fishes within the third turn consistently.

[ELD]

Here are some points that need to be kept in mind.  

1. Losing lots of games is not an option.  There are several people playing solid decks.  Every week a couple of them will have a good run and I will not be able to keep up with them if I'm losing games throughout the day.  

2.Speed is important, not just in "goldfish" speed, but in the actual time it takes to play it out.  I have reservations about a storm based deck due to the time it takes to actually keep track of everything.  Assuming a clean piece of paper is used each match to avoid any confusion, I'm fairly certain dragon is still faster "timewise."

3. Then bench mark for combo has been set by belcher.  It goldfishes on first or second turn almost every time.  Those turns go rather quickly too, as the combo is very easy to play.  If a combo deck cannot out race that, then it needs something else going in it's favor.  The dragon decks have force of will for example.  When trying to come up with a new deck to play, one must ask why it's better than something that has already proven itself.  

4. Necropotence really doesn't belong in this league.  If you're passing the turn you'll likely not get it back.  

I'll throw a tps list together at some point and see how long it takes to goldfish games.  After that I'll likely try an academy rector based deck and see what duress/cabal therapy do to other combo decks.  For now I'll be running that tog list and see if I can up the points.  I believe I should be able to average 5 minutes per game which will leave me with 24 games in 2 hours.  That will also be 72 points, which is 3 more than I've been able to achieve so far.  If anyone has any interesting ideas for wish targets I'm all ears too.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'm really not sure if this is a wasted post, but it seems like if you do decide to run hulk, and you're looking for wish targets, you might want to explore a different 4th color.

From the other posts, it seems as though both control, and other artifact based decks (sans belcher) are absent from the metagame.  This makes the advantages of running red minimal.  Would white, with swords for dragon and goblins, and possibly even something as janky as orim's chant/abeyance for other combo be helpful?

[ELD]

Exploring another color is definately an option.  The reasons I cut a 3rd colors are as follows.  

1. Will the splash add a wish target that does something that I cannot do with BUG?  Swords vs goblins probably isn't as strong as contagion or beb.  Snuff out or vendetta would probably be just as solid here as well.  Vs Dragon I have BeB and coffin purge.  Here swords is slightly better as it prevents futher animations, but that brings me to my next point.  

2. If it does do something that can not be done in BUG is it worth it?  The real issue is needing to fetch a white source and then being kept away from black or green when needing to combo.  Since I'm mostly winning as early as possible, I'm only gettting 3 or 4 lands on the table most of the time.  A wasteland can stunt my growth, so I'm often finding basic islands for the first land.  

So if anyone has any idea's for cunning wish targets that do something that is not available in BUG I'd love to hear them.

[Jacob Orlove]

Several months ago I heard of a type 1 arena league not more than an hour from my house.  The people who actually attended it explained how the format worked to me and I was intrigued.  One plays a single game vs. an opponent.  A win gets 3 points, a loss gets 1 point.  One must always play the available player, but may not play the same person twice in a row.  When the dust settles at the end of two hours, the person with the most points wins.  

So, all you have to do is lose roughly once every two minutes to get 60 points. Not too difficult:

The Mana:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
10 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual

Search
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Doomsday
4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Spoils of the Vault (Mirrodin block been so good to me)
4 Death Wish

Creatures:
4 Wall of Blood
4 Blood Celebrant

Draw:
4 Infernal Contract
2 Necrologia
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence

Utility:
1 Soul Channeling
2 Murderous Betrayal

Sideboard:
4 Phage, the Untouchable
4 Reanimate
4 Buried Alive
2 Vendetta
1 Relentless Rats

[firebird365]

That's a flawed idea, because you'd need another person to play against (because you can't play the same person 2x in a row)... so the other people would have to be playing at the same rate as you.

[ELD]

Honestly, the only way to win is to win alot of games.  The number of games played is not something one can really control.    The most I've played so far is 23.  That was with a ton of first turn belcher kills.  I still needed to wait around for other people to finish their games anyways.  Besides, if you're losing a ton of games, you're going to inflate the hell out of other peoples scores.