Attacking Jace! [Premium Article]

[Smmenen]

Blurb:

Tuesday, September 14th - Stephen designs a foil deck to keep Jace/Time Vault in check, and runs you through a game to show you how to beat Jace down!

I don't really have much to add to that, except that this article has lots of details and decisions to walk through, but also uses the game to illustrate a few important principles of game play.  

Let me know what you'd do!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/20060_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Attacking_Jace.html

[voltron00x]

Steve, I shot you an email on this also.  Can you see if the editor will correct the deck name (Dark Times), the player name (Ryan Glackin, no "s"), and the tournament involved (which is Vintage Champs, not "Misc")?  I know they're notorious for choosing their own titles for decks / events, so you may have submitted correctly and not even realize how its listed:

"Helm Void
A Vintage deck, by Ryan Glaskin
8th place at a Miscellaneous tournament in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States on 2010-08-08"

Otherwise, enjoyed the article.

[conboy31]

The article and deck list were great and I agreed with the play choices of the tezz player except for 1 crucial play.  On turn 2 he has the opportunity to natures claim his opponents moxen, specifcally the blue or green.  In that situtation I would have blown up the green one without hesitation.  The reasons being that it keeps him off another tarm, a trygon predator (I would think he plays it given the gamestate), it makes null rod somewhat precarious.  If I knew the opponents decklist, I would be even more likely to prune the opponent off green as that is the means by which they establish their clock.

What reasons did you refuse to have the tezz player blow up either mox?

[Smmenen]

For some reason, I forgot the linky:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/20060_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Attacking_Jace.html

Matt, shoot an email to Teddy, and see if he'll change it.  I took his list and name from the Pasttimes website.

Conboy: let me think about your question, and get back to you. 

[conboy31]

I was thinking about the line of play again, and thought I might as well expand on my reasoning.
The exact game state was:
Tez hand - Natures claim, drain, drain, FOW
Tez board - saph, jet, pearl, usea, trop (all untapped)
Grow hand - (3 mystery cards) - duress, imp seal, tarm
Grow board - saph, emerad, underground sea (all tapped), and Goyf
Eating a mox takes away the ability to hardcast force, but still allows for mana drain.  In regards to the opponents mana sources it culls off a third of their resources.  Specifcally the green source.
When put in that position as the control player, (the 'goyf resolving) I briefly ask myself: Am I going to get aggro'd out?  Another creature or two landing and beating me to death.  Also, am I going to get tempo'd out?  Getting rod'd, wasted, pierced, or stripped just enough that this tarm will kill me.
Each of these possibilities greatly depends on knowing or not knowing the opponents 60 or 75.
If I did not know what deck I was facing, I would surmise that they are not playing time vault/key as decks with tarm, on average, do not.  And if they did, I currently have 3 cspells but no threat on the table.  This means goyf is the bigger issue  I would ignore null rod because I still have hit two land drops, I have counterspells, and play predator.  This leads me to using the claim on one of his moxes, probably the green source to prevent additional creature beats and possibly allowing my countermagic to be used to push through a bomb of my own.

Edit- If I knew my opponents deck list I would ask myself, what emphatically beats me here? protection -> tarm, protection -> bob, tarm or bob with backup, tarm and bob, protection -> tinker, tinker with backup, time walk + regrowth.

[JACO]

Steve, when you write these articles that contain sample games, can you tell me your method(s) for this?
1) are you playing a bunch of sample games, and then writing about the most interesting one(s)?
2) are you filming them to make it easier to recap everything, or are you just using abbreviated system for notating opening hands, what is drawn, etc., and do everything by hand?

I'm interested in doing articles with matchups and was hoping you could shed some light on the best practices you've developed so far.

[Smmenen]

Steve, when you write these articles that contain sample games, can you tell me your method(s) for this?
1) are you playing a bunch of sample games, and then writing about the most interesting one(s)?
2) are you filming them to make it easier to recap everything, or are you just using abbreviated system for notating opening hands, what is drawn, etc., and do everything by hand?

I'm interested in doing articles with matchups and was hoping you could shed some light on the best practices you've developed so far.

JACO,

Good questions.

It depends.   Sometimes, I'll play a bunch of games, and just note the play by play, and then choose one that I found to be the most interesting.  Sometimes, I'll just play one game or a match, and use that one.   Often, though, I'm not even playing for an article, but just two fisted testing or play testing and find a game that's so noteworthy or interesting that I decide to record it.  This is what happened with my Lands v. Reanimator article. 

I don't film them by hand, but I have filmed games before.   If my laptop had firewire I would be uploading all kinds of videos. 

I do everything in a word processor, but my shorthand usually looks something like this:

T1:
Me: Jet, Sea, Bob
Opp: Trop

T2:
Me: flip Pearl, draw Force, Pearl, Delta, Tinker (Force pitch Drain), break delta for Volc, Spell Pierce

Etc.

You can short hand it almost anyway, but the point is to quickly record all relevant info.