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Counting Cats in ZendikarBy Caleb Durward on March 23rd, 2010 · Filed in Limited · 12 Comments"It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar" - Henry David Thoreau
Spoiler:
Lots of black cards, but nothing tempting. The real trouble is green. I had already fought a grinder with a green white deck that almost went to time. I hated it. Those decks have no room for error in building or in play, and no safety net of removal. Here, the double Tajura Archers and Baloth Woodcrushers caught my eye, but I resisted the green beasts. The list I ran:
I had enough time to throw together a "side deck" tuned to beat UW skies, to save crucial sideboarding time later. It looked like so: There's a lot of good stuff for this "deck" to do. Only seven allies, but the Archers should slaughter any opposing fliers while the Ondu Clerics shore up the early game. Ideally, the equipment and Woodcrushers would then mop up the opponent. My first round was against a three color deck. Bgu, running Surrakar Marauders and Explorer's Scopes. I studied my opponent's body language. He shuffled smoothly and quickly, showing he played a lot of Magic. Most of us do, but at least I knew he wasn't a scrub. He hunched over his cards a bit, sometimes a sign of nervousness, but the practiced bored expression on his face made me think he was confidant. When we started playing, however, he didn't look at me much. His vision was always on his cards, the top of his deck, or the play field. This told me that while he might have the technical side of his game down, his psychology needed work. If you watch someone like Louis Scott Vargas play, he doesn't look at his cards often. He knows his hand, knows the board situation. This frees him up for the subtler things, like watching what his opponent is doing. While I wouldn't expect my round one grinder opponent to be on that level, the fact that he didn't read me at all was a good sign. Later on, the speed of his motions and the expressiveness of his eyebrows reliably told me when he had drawn something good, or whether his hand was full of juice or land. That's a whole lot of information to hand to your opponent inadvertently, and while our match was uneventful due to me having larger creatures, had it been close the extra data might have tipped the scales. Despite tells being widely known, many players still fail to take advantage of them, or notice when they're giving them off. If all magic players have strategic abilities, a given, and we all read the same articles and study the format for similar amounts, who has the advantage? The most focused and in the game. Part of that is studying the opponent. An important bit of information from Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells is that a lot of people think they have to act to prevent you from reading them. This, in turn, makes them remarkably readable. When a player stops to read an unimportant card, or only frowns to think only after you ask him if the spell resolves, he is giving you an obvious tell. I have the combat trick, or, I don't have any countermagic. A subtler side of this is that some players become talkers when they bluff, and clam up when they have the nuts. Then there are the physical indicators. The shaky hand is the classic sign of a beginner who thinks he has the stone cold nuts. The wavering is due to the high level of adrenaline in their system. I've noticed this more in younger players. For example, in the first round of GP MN my RB opponent's hands start shaking as he sent a couple of men in. He was at two life, and I had a 2/2 and a tapped 2/3 flyer in play. I could trade dorks, go to seven life, and swing for the win and hope he doesn't have a removal spell for my flyer, or I could drop to five and have two dorks to swing at him next turn. I was holding a couple land and he had a land and a fresh card. It burns! I went through a mental list of relevant spells in the format and finally put him on one of the multiple Disfigures or Hideous Ends I'd seen his deck churn out in the previous two games. I took the damage, and palmfaced when he dropped a kicked Unstable Footing. Right tell, wrong read. Getting back to the grinder, my next round opponent was playing the deck I had tuned for: the dreaded red/black concoction. Game one I lost the roll, but fortunately he didn't have a creature for the first few turns. My hand was a Burst Lightning, a Torch Slinger, and an Into the Roil. He dropped a Ruinous Minotaur, which I let smack me for five. If he didn't have early drops before, paying five life for a Stone Rain + Time Walk made sense. I paused him to think as he swung in the next turn. Stone Raining my opponent is good, but it's never comfortable to be at ten against a RB deck. In fact, if I can protect my life total they usually peter out with a pile of 1/1 and 2/2 dorks. When I drop below ten, their evasive guys get deadly and quick burn can kill out of nowhere. I burned the guy, and he dropped a second Ruinous Minotaur and a Guul Draz Vampire. He winced as I Torch Slingered the Vampire. After I landed a Geyser Glider next turn, he scooped them up. -Wind Rider Eel, Goblin War Paint + Kraken Hatchling, Slaughter Cry The blocking plan. I should haven taken out the Glider. While it blocks better, the curve of the deck would have supported Eel better, as the goal was to kick Torch Slinger turn five. Game two disappointed me. I kept a hand of Burst Lightning and a few early dorks, but his hand was equally aggressive, and we trade removal and blows. I stall on four land with a Torch Slinger, Geyser Glider, and a number of three drops in hand. There was a moment where I could have burned a guy, untapped, drawn a land to cast Into the Roil on a blocker and steal another with Mark of Mutiny for his exact life total. I burned the guy, and untapped to draw a redundant Torch Slinger. It happens. At least tight play gave me the chance to win. -Slaughter Cry +Goblin War Paint The enchantment is much better on the attack, and thus increases in value on the play. Game three I opened a grip of Kraken Hatchling, Goblin War Paint, Trusty Machete, Burst Lightning, and land. It was a difficult keep. In a void, the Hatchling is the worst kind of attacker. Enchanting it with the War Paint, then, is not maximizing the value of either card. A creature with power, any power, will use the boost more efficiently. It's the difference in playability between Pillarfield Ox and Jargon Bard. For those who don't know, Ox is highly playable in Zendikar limited while Bard is only marginal in a few ally decks. One point of power matters when your creatures have to turn sideways to end things now. After taking a deep breath and running through the chances of him having a Hideous End in hand, I kept and dropped the Hatchling. He smirked, clearly unworried. Either he had a flyer-heavy hand, or he has the equipment/removal to not have to worry about a 0/4 blocker. He chuckled as I made a 2/6 and swung. He didn't have a play. Most underrated beater ever? You be the judge! His smile disappeared on my turn three when I dropped Trusty Machete, equipped, and bashed for four. Already he was at 14 from Hatchling beats. He looked worried, but not as crushed as someone without an out, so I figured he might have the removal but just be worried about being at 14 on the draw against an opponent with burn and a Machete in play. I knew my hand had no gas, but he didn't. He drew and dropped a Vampire Nighthawk. That explained his confidence! I untapped, drew a Highland Berserker, and swung in with the Hatchling. He declined the two for one, and dropped to ten. I played the Berserker and passed the turn. He bashed with the Nighthawk and dropped a Nimana Sell-Sword, which I bolted with the +1+1 counter on the stack. He drops to six, and decides to leave the Nighthawk back to block with a freshly played dork. I Inferno Trapped the Nighthawk and he was reduced to chumping. The game ended next turn. Whenever I think about if a card is good or bad, I remind myself that I’m evaluating it based on past data. Data which, while relevant, is not necessarily accurate to the game at hand. Each game is an individual beast, and if you treat them all the same you'll start dropping games. Plans are good, necessary even, but never let a plan get in the way of a good move. In sealed, I have to remind myself to constantly reevaluate cards. The pros use Desecrated Earth sometimes, and so should the rest of us. The next round got interesting. Oof! Game one he won the roll. As it turned out, that was even more important than usual. He ran out a turn Oran-Rief Survivalist, which I let live, planning on burning his next creature and trading a dork for his survivalist. I played a Highland Berserker. He dropped an Umara Raptor, and I grimaced. I still think I played correctly, as my creatures could handle the 3/3 ground pounder better than the flyer. I untapped, swung for two, and passed. I could've cast a Torch Slinger, but he wasn't going to win me the race, and I needed mana up to burn the Raptor. He cast a second Raptor, and I burned out the first in response, taking four from the survivalist. I untapped, drew a land, gritted my teeth and dropped the slinger. I hate giving my opponent's two for ones, but here there was no choice. He dropped a second Survivalist, and the game was over. I looked at my sideboard and considered transforming into the W/G deck I threw together at the beginning. Here it is again for reference:
Spoiler:
Ideally, the allies should buy me time, leaving me with good chances in the middle game to be slaughtered by opposing 4/4 and 5/5 Oran-Rief Survivalists. If I somehow survived that, I could hope to draw a game ender instead of a string of bad allies. The plan didn't appeal to me. I stuck with my red concoction, as burning out his creatures was really the best shot I had. In retrospect, I was correct set aside the green white deck, but this side plan obscured the best course of action: removing blue and adding in green. Welkin Turn and Rite of Replication were not going to win this game for me, but some flyer hate might have. Something like: - Rite of Replication Welkin Tern Windrider Eel Into the Roil 3 red cards And + Tajura Archer Tajura Archer Oran-Rief Recluse Oran-Rief Survivalist Joraga Bard Grazing Gladehart Stonework Puma Or, without having to rely on bad allies, + Oran-Rief Recluse Oran-Rief Survivalist Grazing Gladehart Red card (the third Ruinous Minotaur seems like an ok choice to stand in front of oncoming Survivalists). But my commitment to my plan, the one deck for the aggro menace and the other for UW skies, clouded my vision. I made a similar mistake in the top eight of the Vintage side event the next day, but that's for a different article. If there are any readers interested in a vintage column, let me know in the forums. I pulled out the second game at a scant few life due to timely combat tricks and removal with triggers on the stack. In the third game he played four (!) Oran-Rief Survivalists and three (!) Umara Raptors. I burned and traded, but after the dust settled a lone 4/4 Raptor finished me off. Him- "I never thought this would work this well! I drew every single one in my deck!" Me- "…" A good summation of my GP experience was, much to Thoreau's despair, I did travel to take some notes and count some cats. I no longer have any real interest in the Pro Tour, as I know I'll never make it to enough events to overcome the variance. I do have an interest in game theory, however, so I'll be keeping up with competitive magic for a while, and the few events I make it to will be well prepared for. Notes from this session of counting cats: 1- Mulligan aggressively. A good rule of thumb for limited is that if you don't have action for turn three, you should probably ship the hand. In the current block, you need a play on turn two or you're dead in the water against the most popular draft archetypes. 2-Overpreparedness can make you burn out on a format. I'd experienced this on occasion from testing out matchup percentages for various constructed formats, but never in limited until this season. It's pointless to play unless you're having fun. 3-Plans are good, necessary even, but never let a plan get in the way of a good move. One of the best chess players of all time, Bobby Fischer, once said of the then-world champion Tigran Petrosian: "Petrosian was never distracted from his plans, even by good moves!" If you see a good move, pause, think it through, look for a better one. This is applicable to game play, metagame analysis, and card evaluations. A limited article wouldn't be complete without my thoughts on the new set, and I've been drafting ZZW pretty much nonstop. Overall, I've found Iona's Judgement to be closer in power to Journey to Nowhere than you might think, as on the early turns you want to be playing men anyway and Judgement doesn't get hit by Mold Shambler. Knowing I'll probably get a couple late makes me happier to draft white in the earlier packs. Also, there are a lot more allies in Worldwake, so I don't always have to splash colors to get my ally count up anymore. The 3-5 color ally deck is still there, but two color allies works consistently enough to make the splashes not worth it most of the time. Red is still my color of choice, but Green got a lot better. Get your Arbor Elfs and Feral Contests while they're still underdrafted. Feral Contest serves as both a pump and a removal spell, and is great at handling flyers and gaining tempo in the early stages of the game, which is something of a weak spot for green. Arbor Elf is another tempo card that can ramp you into some nutty draws. I'm out. Enjoy the new limited format, while it lasts. -Caleb Durward By Caleb Durward on March 23rd, 2010 · Filed in Limited · 12 Comments |
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