[Premium Article] Murderer's Row: A Power Nine Vintage Tournament Report

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17800_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Murderers_Row_A_Power_Nine_Vintage_Tournament_Report.html

I played Grow on day 1 of the tournament.   Description of the deck, play-by-play tournament report, and some concluding thoughts.

[zeromancer]

Hi,

I think the version of the deck featured in the last turnament report seems a bit better. Why did you cut the 4th Mox? More Moxen would enable you to put down confidant/goyf on turn 1 more often and help you to utilize tinker more regularly. If I remember correctly, you concluded last time that you would need 2 Tops to better control the damage done to you by your confidants (4 Fow, Misd, Gush & Levi...). Why did you go back on that one?

[Tobi]

I don’t know what the solution is. Do I need to play more Magic? Less Magic? It’s frustrating, not to mention embarrassing, to be playing so poorly. One of the reasons I played Grow instead of something like TPS (the other deck I was considering) was specifically because it requires less play skill. From here out, I am going to put much more energy into my technical play, both in testing and in tournament.

I think it is not a matter of how much magic you play to keep focused. It is also not a matter of which deck you play. You can make fatal decisions with every deck, and sometimes the decks that seem to be the easiest to play turn out to be very tricky sometimes.
Keeping focused and concentrated is a mind training thing, something that tennis, golf and chess players need to train.

[wiley]

I don't know about you, but I throw decks that I find extremely hard to play perfectly into my testing to make sure that I'm not losing focus.  It is really hard to do a self assessment of your play if you only have one angle to look at it through.

[voltron00x]

First, this...

"A further complication is that he didn’t have to block just yet. What if he let my Goyf through? Or just blocked with Shaman? I didn’t know what to do. Gah! Creature combat!"

... I found to be awesome.  It made me chuckle here at work.  I've found that you don't usually write this way (you rarely break out of professional / scholarly tone of voice) but it got the point across perfectly.

I enjoyed the polls as well.  I keep meaning to include something similar but it always slips my mind.

I've often found that a short break from M:TG will help my mind "reset" and improve my play.  For some reason I seem to experience diminishing returns after a while.  

[Duncan]

In your match against Michael Mohring you say:

On my first turn, I draw Black Lotus. My plan is now clear: Tinker away Black Lotus on turn 3 for Leviathan and win the game.

But you also said Lotus was in your opening 7. I guess one of those Lotuses is a Tinker.

I also think Scroll for Ancestral was the better play in the third game. Goyf does not do that much, except keeping a shaman at bay or deal him 1 damage. Scrolling for Ancestral lets you get ahead of the Shop player. As long as you hit your landdrops (which Ancestral ensures) and draw cards they have a hard time winning in general.


The mental part of magic is a side I see a lot of players struggle with. Once you've made a mistake, take the hit and go further. Don't let it influence the rest of you plays and get even worse. This is one of the harder parts of tournament magic that isn't easily improved at home or in testing. In a Legacy tournament I once played Engineered Explosives with Mishra's Factory and Volcanic Island in a board with 2 Goblin Piledrivers (I had other lands untapped as well). I could not believe what I did after he noted it only got 1 counter. I repacked myself and was able to win that game, that match and end up making top4 in that tournament (the very one that got me a trip to the US where I could meet all of you guys).

Mistakes you've made and games you've thrown away because of them are just like sunk costs in economics. Don't let your future decision be influenced by them.


Nice article again, I like the tournament report ones, because they show your lines of thinking in-game, which is insightful.

[pierce]

I don't think the problem deals with playtesting. After all, I was able to put of two solid finishes over the weekend despite not playing a game of magic since Honolulu, and having zero expirience with the current vintage meta entering the event.

The problem deals with what I call "in head playtesting". Meaning, exploring the format and discerning what cards are more powerful than others.

Consider the two following examples. the first is regrowth in your deck. While certainly better than the average regrowth in a random deck, regrowth is not exeptional in the expected Chicago metagame. given that you expected a good deal of shops and drains, but few dark rituals, this means that there would be few (if any) turn one duresses on your hand. In a metagame where you expected to be duressed first turn every game, such as a tournament heavy with combo decks, regrowth gets exponentially better. but when you expect, workshop-->lock piece, or island, mox, --->go; then such a retroactive card is not justified. In short, you are going to be the beatdown in nearly all your games. A third goyf would have worked wonders for this tournament.

the second example is that of null rod. After day one, you made a great observation on the power of null rod in the current format. Obviously, I have accredited this with my day two success. However, had you taken your own thoughts seriously, and made an effort to actually play with null rods day two, then you would have had more success. Looking up previous fish decks was a good idea, but ignoring the obsveration cost you.

[JACO]

Steve, regarding our match I mulliganed to 5 game one and got blown out, and basically mulliganed to 5 or less game two as well and got blown out. Unfortunately my shuffling technique couldn't provide me with a fair game that round apparently. I'll give you a challenge in Pittsburgh.

Consider the two following examples. the first is regrowth in your deck. While certainly better than the average regrowth in a random deck, regrowth is not exeptional in the expected Chicago metagame...A third goyf would have worked wonders for this tournament.

Actually Regrowth is a great card right now because of the number of Duresses that were played (being played in every non-Ichorid combo deck, more than half of the Drain decks, and any Fish variant with black in it), and is very good in Steve's deck (Regrowing Ancestral, Time Walk, or even Force of Will for tempo is fantastic). I would have run more Tarmogoyfs though, dropping a Thoughtseize from the deck, as 4 Thoughtseize and 4 Confidants is quite a bit of lifeloss.

[Smmenen]

Yeah, you are right.  It probably should be a Thoughtseize or a Duress. Regrowth is too good to not run.   I love 8 Durseses though.  There just isn't room for everything I want to include.  

Hi,

I think the version of the deck featured in the last turnament report seems a bit better. Why did you cut the 4th Mox? More Moxen would enable you to put down confidant/goyf on turn 1 more often and help you to utilize tinker more regularly. If I remember correctly, you concluded last time that you would need 2 Tops to better control the damage done to you by your confidants (4 Fow, Misd, Gush & Levi...). Why did you go back on that one?

My earlier lists did not run a fourth Mox:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37682.0

More moxen do help accellerate the Goyf and Bob, and increase the chances of Tinkering.  But what would you cut?   I think I did talk about adding two tops, but I ended up just going with one. 

[zeromancer]

Sorry for my poor research before posting. But what would I cut? You already stated that you like to have all 8 Duress effects, but one or two of them and/or maybe the third Drain would be possibilites.

[miss_bun]

I think running 8 duresses is smart.  But two tops with 4x bob seems like it would've been more important than another mox, going in.  Do you think 3x goyf and 3x bob would've been better, considering the meta and the rest of your list?  Or would you have cut a thoughtseize or two?

And if you're trying to squeeze in another mox, I've never regretted cutting a land.  It doesn't really matter if you miss your second or third drop if you make up for it with a turn one mox to get over that hump.  I mean, we've all stalled on two mana, but does staring at a hand of 2x land 5x good stuff make you wanna mull any more or less than 1x land 1x mox 5x xgood stuff?  Rarely.  It's irritating when you guess wrong on the draw and they chalice for zero or speed out a null rod before you go, but them's the breaks.

[Polynomial P]

Has this decklist been posted anywhere?