Here's the excerpt from my first Vacaville Report describing the game where I played Balance:
Game 1:
My opening hand was:
Although this hand is land-lite, and has an overabundance of one-casting cost mana acceleration, an odd bottleneck, there are mitigating factors at work. First, this hand has Brainstorm, the universal fixer. If it resolves, Brainstorm is likely to smooth out this draw and find another mana source. Brainstorm will be all the more potent since I’ll have an 8th card in hand to work with, digging three more cards down.
Second, this deck has a nontrivial chance of simply drawing a zero casting cost artifact accelerant either off the draw or with Brainstorm, and then use that mana source to play Sol Ring. After all, this deck has 15 artifact accelerants, 13 of which cost zero mana. The double Dark Rituals will also be useful for gearing up for a fast win with Yawgmoth’s Will if the proper ingredients come together. I can’t justifiably throw this hand back, although Mental Missteps are a nightmare here. Sequencing will be critical to survival.
Turn 1:
My opponent opens with Tropical Island into Noble Hierarch. This simple sequence tells me everything I need to know. My opponent is likely playing Bant Fish, and probably has at least one counterspell of some sort in hand. I need to be cautious of Wastelands, and make sure I am not putting myself in a lethal position if I am Wastelanded. I suspect he also runs Null Rod or Stony Silence. It is ironic that my hand is oddly impervious to that at the moment. Most importantly, my Oath of Druids is now live, as long as I can resolve it.
I draw Mana Crypt on my turn, and while maintaining a cool exterior I am giggling inside. I now face a difficult sequencing question. What do I do? I can play Oath, Sol Ring, Brainstorm, or do nothing at all. I decide to proceed cautiously.
I play Mana Crypt, which resolves. I then play Sol Ring, to bait out Mental Misstep. Sol Ring resolves. This signals to me that my Brainstorm will likely resolve. But should I Brainstorm here?
What would you do? Take a moment to think about it, and make a note of your play.
My goal in this scenario is clearly to resolve Oath of Druids. If I play Oath, and he doesn’t have Force of Will, I will likely just win next turn. He’ll have to Plow his own creature to prevent me from triggering Oath, which means he’ll need a Swords to Plowshares in hand and have the will to use it in that manner, rather than wait and try to Plow my Oath target. However, if he does have a Force in hand and a blue spell to pitch, then I’m left with Brainstorm, two Rituals, and a Burning Wish in hand – not a terrible place to be.
If I wait, and Brainstorm now, I may find a Duress to clear out any possible Force. Then again, waiting may simply give him more time to find a Force. In either case, Brainstorm might dig up another Oath.
On the basis of this train of thought, I decide to play Oath. I play City of Brass and cast Oath of Druids. He plays Force of Will. I take the punch. The problem is what happens next.
Turn 2:
My opponent plays a Wasteland, and Wastes my City of Brass. Ouch. I should have foreseen the possibility of what happens if he Forces my Oath and also has a Wasteland. I instantly regretted my sequencing choice, and not because he had Force of Will. I begin to suspect that I talked myself into the wrong line of play.
He attacked me with his Exalted Hierarch, sending me to 18, and passed the turn.
Luckily, my deck, in a forgiving mood, decided to give me another opportunity to stay in this game. I drew Forbidden Orchard in my draw step after losing my Mana Crypt roll (sending me to 15).
Now what? The dream sequence here is Brainstorm into Mox Opal and another Oath. But that would be unlikely at best. The only real question here is whether I should Brainstorm now, giving my opponent an Orchard generated spirit token with an Exalted creature already in play, or wait until his end step.
It seemed to me that the chances of hitting something useful, like a Chrome Mox and Necropotence or a Black Lotus and a Draw7, were sufficiently high that I should main phase Brainstorm.
I cast Brainstorm, drawing: Memory Jar, Duress, and Gemstone Mine. With the benefit of hindsight, it now became apparent that I definitely should have Brainstormed on turn 1. I would have seen Duress, which I could have played on turn 2, and then likely resolved Oath on turn 3 or earlier. As they say, there is no use crying over spilled milk. One can reflect on mistakes when a tournament is over. What I needed now was a plan.
I had plenty of tools. I had Duress, Memory Jar, and Burning Wish for business, and a pair of Rituals for acceleration. I already had Sol Ring and Mana Crypt in play as well. Next turn, I could, at a minimum, Ritual, Duress, Ritual, Jar with no less than three black mana floating, and a potential additional land in play (if I want to play the Gemstone Mine). I could even play the Burning Wish inside the Jar (drawing it with the Jar). This plan seemed solid. I put back Burning Wish and then Memory Jar on top of that. I passed the turn back.
Turn 3:
My opponent played another Hierarch, and attacked me for 3 with the double Exalted spirit token, sending me to 12, and passed the turn back.
On my upkeep, I lost the Mana Crypt roll again, and fell to 9 life. In my draw step, I drew Memory Jar. Unfortunately, my opponent preempted my plan with an end-of-draw-step Vendilion Clique. Upon seeing my hand, he understandably sent the Jar to the bottom of my library, which drew me the Burning Wish. So what now?
In play I have: Orchard, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring. In hand I have Gemstone Mine, Burning Wish, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Duress. His board is Clique, double Hierarch, Tropical Island and a Spirit token. I was clearing facing death in three turns if not two.
I saw two possible courses of action. One involved Burning Wish for Yawgmoth’s Will. The other involved Burning Wish for Balance. My life was already precarious, and he would be able to attack me for 5 next turn, sending me to 4. Then, I would have a chance to play Ritual, Ritual, Yawgmoth’s Will and replay the City of Brass, the Rituals and cast Brainstorm, and hope to Brainstorm into something useful.
On the other hand, if I Wished for Balance, I could Balance now, wipe his board and preserve most of my hand, trying to live to fight another day. I would just need one good business spell in the next few turns. I did not put much thought into it, but I decided to Balance on the merits of relative card advantage.
I tapped Mana Crypt and cast Burning Wish. I played Gemstone Mine and cast Balance. It resolved. He lost his board. I debated which land to keep in play, but decided to sacrifice Gemstone Mine and keep my Orchard in play. I had to discard a card. My hand had two Rituals and a Duress. He only had two cards in hand.
What would you discard in this situation?
I thought about it for a moment, but couldn’t decide. I had blown through enough of his hand that it seemed like he didn’t have countermagic left. I felt like the Rituals gave me a stronger chance of going broken. I discarded Duress. Yet, in retrospect this seems mistaken. The Duress is a business spell that could buy me time and fight through a counterspell.
I passed the turn back.
Turn 4:
My opponent drew a card, played a Tundra, and passed the turn.
I lost another Crypt roll (my third straight) falling to 6 life. I then drew a Lotus Petal, and passed the turn.
Turn 5:
He drew a card for the turn and played a Dryad Militant. He then passed the turn.
I won my Crypt roll and drew Griselbrand, which I had the mana to cast. Delighted, I cast Dark Ritual, to attempt a double Ritual (followed by Duress) and hard cast Griselbrand. Unfortunately, he Mental Misstepped the first Ritual.
I resolved to try against next turn, except that on turn 6, I lost my Mana Crypt roll and thereby lost the game.
Analysis:
This game was a comedy of errors. The only correct play, where there was a meaningful choice, was the play of leading with Sol Ring to bait out Mental Misstep.
Let this game be an illustration of how to make every kind of error: sequencing errors, Burning Wish errors, and discarding errors, and how those errors compound themselves. First, I clearly mistimed Brainstorm. I should have led with Brainstorm (after resolving Sol Ring), which would have allowed me to Duress first, very likely resolving Oath. Even if he had Cliqued the Oath, I would have been able to play and resolve Jar, likely winning the game. The flip side of this mistake was playing turn one Oath headlong into Force of Will.
Oath is my game winning play. I should have properly set it up, instead of rushing in on turn one because I had other goods cards in hand as a backup plan. There was no need to resolve a turn one Oath. That was not only greedy, it was foolhardy. Brainstorm also protects me in case he Wastelands my City, which is what happened. I was very lucky to draw another land immediately. Not Brainstorming almost lost me the game on account of Wasteland.
The second mistake was Burning Wishing for Balance. In retrospect that seems like a miscalculation. I could have played Duress and Burning Wish, and then next turn Ritual, Ritual, Yawgmoth’s Will to attempt to generate card advantage that route by replaying Brainstorm and City. I would be able to play two Dark Rituals out of the graveyard, and hopefully win the game. Had I sequenced the entire game better, the Burning Wish for Yawgmoth’s Will might have also been able to replay Oath in time not to lose the game.
Third, Getting Balance was not only a mistake, but I compounded that mistake by discarding the wrong card to Balance. Discarding Duress instead of a Dark Ritual prevented me from being able to hard cast Griselbrand. On the turn I drew Lotus Petal, I would have cast Duress, which would have been Misstepped, then resolved Ritual, Petal, Griselbrand on the following turn, and taken over the game from there.
Finally, I probably sacrificed the wrong land to Balance. Although a Gemstone Mine with 2 counters is not that great, given my precarious life situation, it was probably better than Forbidden Orchard at that point.
Each of my misplays cost me not only an opportunity to win the game, but a good chance. Had I just played turn 1 Brainstorm, turn 2 Duress, I would have had a game winning turn three Jar or Oath, depending on which card he left in my hand with Clique.
In retrospect, I consider this game to be a perfect teaching tool. If football coaches review tape and schematics, I offer this game to you as a schematic of, if not what to avoid, an illustration of the kinds of pitfalls and mistakes that can happen.
I also view it as an example of the kinds of interaction that Vintage games force. Vintage is sometimes criticized as a non-interactive format – I offer this game as a counter-example. My opponent Forced, Wastelanded, Cliqued, and Misstepped me. I Duressed and Balanced him! My plays cost me dearly. This was a game that I could have won many different ways, yet it also illustrates how challenging this deck may be to play as well.
I began to sideboard, but rethought my position. I decided to keep my deck as it was, and then sideboard aggressively for game three, should there be one.
