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The Atog Lord
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« on: January 18, 2009, 05:11:27 am » |
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A discussion of Meditate Remora and a brief tournament report
Myriad Games 1/17/2000, 35 players, 1st
Prelude
I wanted to start a thread about a promising deck that I've been enjoying lately. This post will be divided into several parts. If you have read a few of my tournament reports, you know that they are often a combination of deck discussion and event report; this will be primarily a discussion of the deck, but will have tournament notes as well.
Before launching in, I also wanted to mention the name of the deck briefly. OM is what we've been calling it on the team boards, but there is a reasonable case for just calling it Remora, as that is the definitive card in the deck. One may make a rather reasonable case for calling it Tyrant Blue as well, though it contains no Tyrants and is not mono blue either. So, as far as what to name the deck, I'll be happy to see what sticks.
That out of the way, onto the start behind how I came to play this.
The Theory Behind the Deck
Several months ago, Wizards grasped the Vintage metagame in its hand and shook mightily. The result of restrictions, unrestrictions, errata, and new cards was that established archetypes needed to be reevaluated, and that new Drain builds began to emerge. Personally, I have in the past few months sampled a plethora of Drain-based archetypes yet found none to be ideal. Control Slaver, in its traditional form, has been too slow. It was unable to beat combo with any consistency, while its old nemesis Fish was becoming increasingly powerful. Capsule Slaver was an improvement, but even that deck was too weak against both combo and aggro. After missing Top Eight both days of Traviscon with two different builds of Capsule Slaver, I knew that it was time to put aside my Goblin Welders and explore other ideas.
The first deck that I tried to build was a quick deck with tutors focused on assembling Time Vault and Voltaic Key as quickly as possible. With light draw and counters, yet heavy tutors, it was able to goldfish quite well. It had a solid Elf matchup too. However, my early attempts to build it lacked any ability to win against decks packing Mana Drain. Chris and I liked the idea of a proactive Drain deck, but at first we were unable to make it work. Interestingly, Chris and I were able to construct a build that actually does work, taking the idea of Thoughtcast from Cesar Fernandez. This is a very strong deck -- a deck which Chris played at Myriad when I played this deck. However, that is a different deck for a different thread, and I'll let Chris write that post should he choose.
The next Mana Drain deck Chris and I considered was Tezzeret Oath. We have put some considerable time into that archetype, and even found some success with it. However, we never could get it to flow smoothly enough for our liking. Drawing Oath creatures was a chronic nuisance. Beyond that, none of the draw engines that we tried seemed like they were very well suited to the deck. Thirst for Knowledge was uninspiring, given the dearth of artifacts in the deck. Having a useless Dragon in your hand, and still needing to pitch an otherwise useful Mox to Thirst, was a frustrating yet frequent occurrence in the Thirst build of the deck. Intuition/AK flowed better in the deck to be sure, but I've never been a huge fan of the Intuition/AK engine, and this was no exception. Draws in Oath, as the game progresses, tend to become clogged with cards you would rather have in your deck than your hand. This is less of an issue for faster Oath builds like those of ICBM, but it becomes a real issue for slower builds like I wanted. The lack of multiple Brainstorms really hurts the slower Oath archetype.
After trying several decks, and not being satisfied with any of them, I realized that the true culprits in this caper were the draw engines which I had been using. I couldn't find a slower Oath deck I liked primarily because none of the draw engines I had tried were good enough. Sure, you can use almost anything to draw cards in Oath; but too many draw engines lead to a hand filled with useless cards. Thirst for Knowledges in typical Tezzeret decks were also suboptimal. With fewer artifacts to discard than Control Slaver, and no Welder to leverage its discard, Thirst is quite a different card in Tezzeret and in Control Slaver. Far too often, Thirst in Tezzeret failed to generate any card advantage at all. So, I realized that in order to be satisfied with any Drain deck in Vintage, I would need to be playing with a better card advantage engine than the decks that Chris and I were testing.
After telling this to Chris he decided to try Night's Whisper. Yet, the same drawbacks which have always hindered it remain. It requires fetching off-color mana. It costs life, which matters against several decks. It doesn't pitch to Force of Will, and can tap you out from Mana Drain until you have four mana open. All this for an effect which is by no means broken. So, as great as that spell always looks on paper, Chris and I decided that it wasn't yet the right time for Night's Whisper to return to competitive Vintage.
So, I went through all manner of card draw spells. I was looking for a spell that costs less than four, since Gifts Ungiven and Fact or Fiction are as good as I might expect to find above three mana. The options for cheap blue card draw are many, but Mediate jumped out at me. Meditate is a huge four cards for three mana. Even counting the card drawn by an opponent on his extra turn, it nets two cards, the same as Ancestral Recall. A three mana blue instant that draws a lot of cards? That was exactly what I had been looking for.
Having found one good draw spell for a Vintage Drain deck, I wanted yet another. Fortunately, Jeff and Jeremiah have already solved this quandary. Mystic Remora is the best unrestricted draw spell to play alongside Meditate. The synergy is fairly straightforward. Mystic Remora, while in play, makes opponents' attempts at having meaningful turns tend to backfire. If an opponent plays into Remora, then your hand builds up, often enough to counter whatever the opponent is doing and also present a threat on your own next turn. Meditate dovetails well with this strategy by giving you a sizable reward for giving your opponent an extra turn.
What makes this two-card draw combo much better than many of its competitors is that its pieces are both great on their own. Once a Remroa is in play, Meditate or not, it becomes very hard for an opponent to push through threats, or even play draw spells to establish his hand. Meanwhile, except for the fact that your mana is tied up paying for the fish, you are free to develop your hand and board. Likewise, Meditate is a very strong spell on its own. Once you and your opponent are down to just a few cards each, Meditate lets you jump up to a more impressive hand. It is best used when both you and your opponent are in draw-go mode. Without Remora, casting Meditate can be somewhat risky. However, with some practice and good timing, Meditate can be a very strong draw spell. I have greatly preferred it to Thirst for Knowledge, at least in a deck this light on artifacts.
Now that we have established a strong draw engine, how do we prevent an opponent from ignoring it and going off? How do we make it so that an opponent attempting to go off through Remora is unlikely to succeed? Especially given that we are going to be tapping out frequently for Remora, the answer must be pitch control spells. In particular, I have been a big fan of Commandeer for quite some time. I initially started using it in Control Slaver as a means of combating combo decks; and while it wasn't enough to make the matchup favorable, I did become very impressed by the card. The double-pitch price is high, but the effect can be game-altering. I've stolen Necropotence, several Tezzerets, many Ancestrals, Crucibles, and plenty of other cards. It is much more flexible than Misdirection, and can be used to halt threats that Misdirection cannot. Misdirection is fine for what it does, but is really only great when an opponent runs out an Ancestral, or when you are trying to defend a spell of your own.
The deck was testing quite well; it even won first place in a Monday night Vintage event at Scholar's in Bridgewater, Mass. There was only one slight problem -- the careful reader may observe that were I constructing a deck whose primary objective were losing to aggro strategies, I could be quite happy with my creation. Mystic Remora ties up mana while doing nothing whatsoever about opposing creatures. Commandeer, likewise, does nothing in the face of opposing summon spells. And Meditate? That's an ideal target for any Fish player running Word of Command. Testing against Fish confirmed that it was an awful matchup for the deck. My initial build included Psychatog, Fire/Ice, and Repeal. I was impressed by Repeal, and Fire/Ice was solid enough, but the deck still wasn't very good against Fish. So, I went to the man who always seems to know just the right card to patch up a deck -- Brassman. Brassman pointed out that many Fish decks have no good way to handle Old Man of the Sea, especially maindeck. Considering that he can steal Goblin Welders, most creatures in Fish, and even attack well enough, I was convinced.
Decklist from Myriad Games, January 17 2008
Land
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
5 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
Artifact Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
Win Conditions
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Tinker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
Reasons to Splash Black
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Stack Control
4 Force of Will
3 Commandeer
1 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
Restricted Draw
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
The Engine
4 Mystic Remora
4 Meditate
Board Control
4 Old Man of the Sea
2 Repeal
// Sideboard:
SB: 1 Energy Flux
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Rack and Ruin
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Viashino Heretic
The most salient omission is Tezzeret. Tezzeret is quite excellent against Drain decks, but this deck already has a good matchup there. On the other hand, Tezzeret is not great against creatures, which is already the deck's worst matchup. So, Tezzeret helps the most when he is the least needed. Also missing is Tolarian Academy, which was causing more game loses and mulligans than game wins, due to the low number of artifacts in the deck. Also missing is Mana Crypt, which I cut after the third or so game it cost me that I otherwise would have won. Note, finally, that the deck has a very high blue count. The deck wouldn't function properly if it only had 24 or so blue cards.
A Brief Tournament Report
If you see me playing at a Vintage tournament, you'll likely see me scribbling notes as I play. This is so that I can write reports afterward; my memory is in general not good enough to do so without notes. However, along with forgetting my Atog playmat, I didn't take notes during most of this event. I forgot to bring a pad of paper, and after the first three rounds didn't take any notes at all. Therefore, I will try to recall what happened as well as I can. If I get anything wrong, I apologize in advance.
35 players showed up for the first New England tournament for Rankings. I was very happy to see such a good turnout. Dan ran another great event, even if I never got a Mana Cookie. Micah was kind enough to pick up me and Chris from Norwood on the way there. Thanks for driving Micah!
Round I: Matt with Tezzeret
Game One: He mulligans and I win off an early Tinker.
Game Two: This is the one game all day that I lost immediately after casting Meditate, desperate Meditate-Because-I'm-Dead-Anyway situations excluded. Matt has only two cards in hand and a Voltaic Key in play. I have a Meditate in hand, and the ability to cast Commandeer should I draw one more blue card. I cast Meditate on Matt's end step, drawing another blue card. Matt draws his third card, and then plays Time Vault with Force backup.
Game Three: After Matt resolves Tezzeret through a counter, I need to find a Red Blast on my next turn. I end up playing Ancestral and Meditate, and finally finding the REB after tapping Library. I found the REB as the eighth card I drew that turn, meaning that Thirst for Knowledge would not have let me win.
Round II: Bill Copes with Stax
Game One: Bill has Chalice at Zero and Sphere of Resistance. I Force the Sphere and play a Remora. Tangle Wire then resolves, but I manage to Commandeer both Smoke Stack and Crucible.
Game Two: I mulligan. I die under a pile of Welder-assisted Stax components before I can stabilize.
Game Three: I am beaten to death by a Triskelion this game. I needed a red mana to cast the Rack and Ruin in my hand, and I did not find it. I could have fetched a red source earlier, but wanted to have the Basic Island early in case Bill had a Wasteland.
Round III: Chad with Fish
Game One: I mulligan a no-blue-source hand. I cast only a Brainstorm all game as a pair of Trygon Predators kill me. I was badly flooded.
Game Two: Chad opens by Wasting my first two lands. My first old Man becomes a Farmer. My second lives to thrown by Trygon Predator and Dark Confidant into oncoming Tarmogoyfs, but eventually I can't stop the Triple Tarmogoyfs coming at me and I lose badly.
Thus I start the tournament at an unimpressive 1-2. Figuring I won't make top eight, I stop taking any notes, having only taken very brief notes prior on my small life pad. The match with Stax was very close, and had I fetched a red source, I likely would have won. I was buried by Fish, but that is not entirely unexpected. However, I don't lose a match from here. I'll try to recount the matches as well as I can.
Round IV: Oli with Ub Painter
In both games, Mystic Remora is the key factor. Oli tries to push through threats and draw spells, but I'm able to counter his threats and execute my combo both games.
Round V: Zygon with Uwb Fish
Without Tarmogoyf, the matchup got much easier. At one point, I cast Meditate after being attacked by Confidant and Ethersworn Canonist -- a Tarmogoyf would have made that impossible. Canonist, for her part, did not prevent me from assembling Key and Vault with counter backup.
Round VI: Craig Dupree with Tezzeret
This is a very favorable match. I steal Craig's Ancestral Recall. Mystic Remora does what it is supposed to do. At one critical juncture, I use Repeal on Craig's Mox to shut him off Drain mana so that I can resolve my Time Vault.
Top Eight: Ray with Staxless Stax
Game One: Ray has a bad hand, so I just Tinker up a second turn Colossus who goes the distance.
Game Two: Ray slips a Sword of Fire and Ice past my defenses, who turns his harmless Gorilla Shaman into a huge threat. I had Commandeer but only one blue card in hand. I had Old Man of the Sea in play, but he had summoning sickness. I lose to the Shaman, unable to stop him before I died.
Game Three: This is a good, long game. I halt Ray's early pressure but he manages to stick a Sword in play. Ray has no creatures, and I have two Old Men. So, to prevent him from having a creature get equipped, I attack with one Old Man while leaving one untapped should Ray play a creature. I have a counter for Ray's Red Blast on the old man, and use Time Vault to get in extra damage by creating turns in which I attack with both Old Men. I win this very close game.
Top Four: Jeremiah with Workshop Slaver
I may be confusing a few details about games 1 and 2 here. Both were very close, very good games.
Game One: Jeremiah has a Chalice at Two and runs out a Vexing Shusher. Mindlock Orb prevents either of the tutors in my hand from working, and the Shusher prevents my counters from working. Jeremiah resolves Thirst, then Fact or Fiction. I split the piles into Thirst+Triskelavus vs Thirst+Shusher+Land. Jeremiah takes the latter pile and plays the Shusher. I resolve an Old Man, who steals a Shusher to pull me back into the game. A critical play occurs when Misdirection allows me to "counter" one of Jeremiah's Force of Wills in a way that gets around Shusher. I eventually win by using Shusher to get a Key and a Time Vault into play through the Chalices at 1 and 2.
Game Two: Jeremiah gets a hugely explosive mana draw involving Academy, a lot of Moxen, and Mana Crypt. In the first few turns, he has plenty of mana to cast a Mana Vault, a draw spell, and even a Chalice at Five -- all while paying four each to prevent my Remora from doing anything. With Chalices at two and five, Jeremiah announces that it is now safe for him to play spells -- and promptly has his Ancestral Recall Commandeered. From there, I can assemble my combo around Chalice at Two by hardcasting Key and Tinkering for Time Vault.
Finals: Demonic Attorney with Thoughtcast Painter
Game One: I have a first turn Library while Chris gets stuck at one land for a couple of turns. Chris can't develop his board due to missing his second and third land drops, and by the time he has gotten online, I've gone too far ahead with Library.
Game Two: Chris has a board of Island and Seat of the Synod when I play a second turn Energy Flux off a Mox. Chris's mana implodes to Energy Flux.
Acknowledgments
This deck would not have come together without the work of many people.
Demonic Attorney is an excellent teammate. He and I have tested this for hours, and Chris has had many keen insights about how to construct this deck.
Props to Jeremiah and Jeff for the original Tyrant Blue deck. That deck really highlighted the synergy between Meditate and Remora.
Props to Brassman for the Old Man of the Sea idea.
Props to Dan for running such great Vintage events.
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