[Free Article] Workshops Own Gen Con

[forests failed you]

New Vintage article up on Starcitygames.com


http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26785_Workshops-Own-Gen-Con.html

Are Workshops back?

Cheers,
Brian

[Twaun007]

Are Workshops back?

Workshops are like Dr. Dre, some people forgot about him, but the true G's never did....

Good read.  

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Champs are in Philly, not New York.

[forests failed you]

Champs are in Philly, not New York.

Already addressed this in the comments on SCG.

[wiley]

Good article, I like that you expanded on why workshops did so well (gush beat out drains, shops combats gush).  It is good information for the people looking at the format from the outside.

Regarding your comments on scg; imperial recruiter can't tutor for exava or ingot chewer as they both have power greater than 2.  It is still an interesting tutor, grabbing draws with confidant, hate with thalia and answers with pridemage, pontif and ooze.  It also grabs stingscourger and canonist out of the board.

[forests failed you]

Yeah, I just realized that too.  I assumed because he had a singleton Ingot Chewer and an Exava that Imperial Recruiter searches for a 3 or less creature.  I checked it out and it is, in fact, 2 or less -- which makes including Exava a little bit strange to me.  Maybe the individual who played the deck will check out the article and see all the questions people have been asking and be able to explain it better than I can.  4/4 haste, uncounterable seems pretty good against durdle jace decks without creatures, but it seems pretty loose against Pyromancer's Elemental Tokens.  It also seems kind of loose against Forgemasters and Lodestones since it doesn't really trade favorably.  I'm also surprised by the lalck of synergy between the +1/+1 Counters and haste, I didn't see many interactions in combination with Exava. 

I will say that I was super happy to see Huntmaster in the deck and that card actually seems like it could be pretty sweet.

[Samoht]

Yeah, I just realized that too.  I assumed because he had a singleton Ingot Chewer and an Exava that Imperial Recruiter searches for a 3 or less creature.  I checked it out and it is, in fact, 2 or less -- which makes including Exava a little bit strange to me.  Maybe the individual who played the deck will check out the article and see all the questions people have been asking and be able to explain it better than I can.  4/4 haste, uncounterable seems pretty good against durdle jace decks without creatures, but it seems pretty loose against Pyromancer's Elemental Tokens.  It also seems kind of loose against Forgemasters and Lodestones since it doesn't really trade favorably.  I'm also surprised by the lalck of synergy between the +1/+1 Counters and haste, I didn't see many interactions in combination with Exava. 

I will say that I was super happy to see Huntmaster in the deck and that card actually seems like it could be pretty sweet.

Kelly has been pushing Exava with solid results for months. It is there to beat Jace.

[wiley]

Demonic and Imperial search for orzhov pontif, which is pretty good at dealing with an army of x/1s.  Also, exava has first strike so it will always trade favorably with lodestone, and there are exalted triggers that *could* make blocking with forgemaster a poor decision.  I don't think it is supposed to be anything other than a great way to answer an early jace though.

A question for soly:  How many times did you actually need the dark ritual when playing?  I know you would cut one, but do you really think a single dr is worth the slot?

@ Jordi:  I love the caltrops in the board.  Awesome called shot!

[Guli]

Nice to see some coverage on Humans. Thanks.

[forests failed you]

That is a super good point:  one could choose not to unleash Exava and leave her back to block against, say, two Lodestones. MOAT.  That is pretty solid.

[DubDub]

A question for soly:  How many times did you actually need the dark ritual when playing?  I know you would cut one, but do you really think a single dr is worth the slot?

Unless Brian or someone is going to pose this question for you, this may not be the best place to ask Soly a question (because he is banned).  You may consider leaving a comment on his recent EternalCentral article.

[Guli]

That is a super good point:  one could choose not to unleash Exava and leave her back to block against, say, two Lodestones. MOAT.  That is pretty solid.

I don't understand one little thing. There is a thread on this very same forum about the Human archetype. Haven't you at least accidentally clicked on it once? I myself have been on Humans for a long time now, Brian has been top 8'ing with the deck for months now. Other top 8's have been reported, we discussed some of them in the thread... It would amaze me that you are unaware of all this, but your comments here seem to have a load of surprise and in your article you almost are defending the archetype against the boogiemans in vintage. Check out the thread in the Null Rod section, Stormanimagus opened it long time ago, the last post was mine and it included a list, check out that list and compare it to the one you covered in this article.

Maybe you can write an article on Humans alone? How it did these past months, what lists were used. You can use the thread as a source, we tried to keep it up to date so far and posted evolutions of the deck. Now we are on a hold, because we have high expectations of Theros

[forests failed you]

I will certainly look into that!  Thanks for the heads up.

[Twiedel]

Hey Brian,

I finally made it ^^ Will provide my list in this post, but first, I REALLY need to tell you that living the dream of an all-creature deck like the one that Steven was playing is not to be overestimated =/ Don't get me wrong, I had long chats with Steven at GenCon, he was a fun guy and I really liked what he was doing - but when we faced in the top 8 he got a total of 3 turns in both games combined until it was won for me. having no countermagic AND no hard disruption powered out by mishra's workshop is really really soft to any kind of "i just try to win"-deck.

Despite the picture you are painting with the workshop heavy top 8, I need to say that there were so little shops in the whole tournaments (both the friday & saturday one), it was almost a shame. At least if we dont count the soft workshop versions, that have near to no disruption in their maindeck - if only my area had this little tangle wires/spheres! I would totally go back to gush and have the REAL fun games once again!!

So, without any further ado, here's my list from saturday:

Black Lotus
5 Moxen
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Time Vault
Voltaic Key
Blightsteel Colossus
Sensei's Divining Top
Nihil Spellbomb
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Mental Misstep
Snapcaster Mage
Spell Pierce
Vendilion Clique
Merchant Scroll
Tinker
Mystical Tutor
Time Walk
Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Yawgmoth's Will
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
4 Dark Confidant
3 Lightning Bolt
 
4 Scalding Tarn
Polluted Delta
Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
Tolarian Academy
Library of Alexandria
 
Sideboard:
Mountain
2 Pyroclasm
4 Ingot Chewer
3 Yixlid Jailer
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Fire Covenant  <- Just a Funpick!

Don't take the Fire Covenant to serious, I really love the card, and it was my attest to all the young pyromancers around... which are pretty bad in my opinion. It seems every blue pilot at the tournament (apart from soly and his DD mate) where on the page that it's a very good plan to cast a 2/1 which generates 1/1s - and no showing in the top 8 was what I suspected. You can easily see what I did with my deck: double the ammount of jaces, go less snapcaster and more drain/bolt. The nihil spellbomb in the main was completely unnecessary as well, since there was really no dredge decks anywhere to be found.

Anyway, I don't want to go to deep into the topic of young pyromancer, I feel like I already was a bit too harsh at that weekend whenever someone asked me about it, but if you are interested in some discussion about the current US metagame - I'd really appreciate it, as I will be heading out to Phily in November! Just drop me a line here =)

Best regards from Germany, keep up the good work!
Marc

[President Skroob]

Don't take the Fire Covenant to serious, I really love the card, and it was my attest to all the young pyromancers around...

Hey, I was sitting next to you when you used Fire Covenant to great effect, I believe after having your Lightning Bolts lost due to Extirpate. It seemed pretty savage (and I think everyone was pretty stoked about it) from my vantage point.

[Twaun007]

but if you are interested in some discussion about the current US metagame - I'd really appreciate it, as I will be heading out to Phily in November! Just drop me a line here =)

I think this would be great! I found it really interesting discussing the European metagame vs the American metagame with Jordi over the course of 4 days and I have to admit, it was very eye opening discussing "European Technology".

[brianpk80]

Hey Brian,

I finally made it ^^ Will provide my list in this post, but first, I REALLY need to tell you that living the dream of an all-creature deck like the one that Steven was playing is not to be overestimated =/ Don't get me wrong, I had long chats with Steven at GenCon, he was a fun guy and I really liked what he was doing - but when we faced in the top 8 he got a total of 3 turns in both games combined until it was won for me.

To be fair, it sounds like you drew spectacularly both games while Thalia and removal were offline.  Most decks have trouble with an opponent exploding very early with counter backup; 5C Humans is no different in this regard.  Grixis/Jace Vault is more difficult than the other "I just try to win" decks whose strategies are more fragile and fold to things like Mindbreak Trap, Stony Silence, Ethersworn Canonist, and Abrupt Decay.  But it's not as lopsided a match as the post here suggests, though the severity of the blow out when variance enables it to occur may be so extreme that it can easily be mistaken for frequency.  I've played and seen games that begin with Cavern, Mox, Thalia, followed by Wasteland/Null Rod or even an unfortunately timed timed Mental Misstep that are total blowouts in the other direction.  It does look like the build here is more tuned to board presence decks like Pyro & Shop than Broken Blue control, so that may be an additional factor to consider.  Congrats on the great showing!