Thanks for hating your perspective, Rob. I was very confused about the Hurkyls Recall as well haha.
I know it's a corner-case scenario, but what are your thoughts on a Personal Tutor instead of the second Intuition? Intuition for a combo piece can be a bit risky, since you are taking two cards out of the deck and going all-in. We don't have a Time Spiral effect to recycle them like High Tide does.
I dismissed personal tutor outright, but it could be worth trying. Intuition gets Omni or Emrakul if you already have the sorcery parts. If I were to try and fit a tutor in, it would probably be in place of the 2nd top or 4th preordain.
I've caught interest in this deck! Like the lab maniac side seems a good solution to win if they somehow extract emmy. What about the other SB slots? Explanations ?
Lab maniac was in the deck for corner cases like that, yeah. Leylines were for Jund (and I would consider them against esper stoneblade), cages for dredge/reanimation strategies. Everything else is a wish target that will sometimes get sided in (misdirection gets sided in a lot as a 5th force of will).
That is very interesting. Right before reading this, I reviewed the top 16 deck lists again and noticed as you already pointed out, that there was no BUG or Jund in the top 16.
Do you have any other pointers or tips about this deck?
Tips or pointers would probably be have little fear game one and practice matches against Jund, RUG and Stoneblade. The Show and tell psuedo-mirrors may become a thing, but practicing them isn't needed really, just form a plan of attack as the game moves on because the gamestate will be very fluid.
Jund, RUG and Blade all present 2 angles of attack (Discard/Clock, Clock/Countermagic and Countermagic/Discard) so you need to be prepared for them. Jund you tend to go for it ASAP, RUG you wait to the last possible moment and Blade you wiggle in when you can (I beat blade decks 3 times in the swiss, including bernal who eliminated me in the top 8 and I feel lucky to have done so).
If stoneblade starts adopting geist more regularly, the match becomes really bad and it is probably already the worst match up. I didnt not bring in leylines against it, but if you know they are going to have 7+ pieces of post board discard, you probably should.
Yeah I saw that! I'm just a little surprised that he wasn't punished by Abrupt Decay... but perhaps I'm thinking about it wrong.
The field was heavily combo, RUG and Blade and Jund was pretty much gone from the top tables after round 5 or 6.
I only played against Jund once and I don't think I cast a monolith. also, if they spend 2 mana killing your monolith, they arent putting a threat in play or shredding your hand.
It was also the card I sideboarded out the most (it is very easy to shave if you arent presented with a clock from your opponent and legacy is pretty slow right now)
My wish board needed a flusterstorm and I was stupid for not playing one (WHY DID I PLAY A HURKYL'S RECALL?).
I am not sure if the 4 Cages are needed, I never saw a GY deck. If you trim one, you could have another wish target or a second flusterstorm.
If the tournament is at a hotel (where drinking is allowed on the grounds, obviously), is there anything specific in MtG tournament rules that prevents you from drinking while playing?
I do not believe there is.
I believe a TO could ban it.
I am also reasonably certain being drunk is against the tournament rules, but actually drinking is not.
LGS is by a Taco Bell/Wendy's/Pizza place or you can drive to a whole bunch more stuff.
For Opens and GPs, I usually bring some Clif bars/Granola bars, trail mix with fruit & nuts and a bag of beef jerky. Convention center food is almost always expensive and usually awful, but I find it hard to stay focused without some food, especially protein (hence the nuts and jerky). And I always have a refillable water bottle.
I'm baffled at some pros' negative reaction to bannings.
WoTC just can't win, no ban = stale format, ban = people upset.
Except "no ban" doesnt always equal "stale format". They can shift entire meta games with the cards they print, look at what Deathrite and Abrupt decay did to legacy.
And before anyone says "well sets are designed well in advance so they couldnt just print a card right now to fix the problem", that's a load of crap. Bloodbraid had to be on their radar as far as "cards that could warp the format" since they banned every other card that has warped a standard format in the modern era (Bitterblossom, JTMS, Stoneforge, Artifact lands, Skull Clamp, etc). They had to know if the span of a year, they were going to introduce good 3 mana flashback spells, 3 mana planeswalker, 2 mana uncounterable removal spell and a 1 mana super birds of paradise that would all interact favorably with BBE in Jund's colors. I don't know what it would be, but they could have printed a card to interact with jund and it's cascade somehow.
I do not understand the fasincation with Jace, the mind sculptor ..... it is broken, it should not have been printed, and it will not be taken off the ban list.
Seeing as how Jace was mediocre at best when Jund was the best deck in format, I am pretty sure he is ok if they don't ban any of the many cards that deal with him very well in the modern card pool.
Jace was a problem in standard when they saw fit to let BBE, Maelstrom Pulse, Lightning bolt and oblivion ring all rotate, while providing no real analogs to those cards in the sets that replaced them.
As modern stands right now, there are a lot of cards to keep Jace in check.
You pay a huge premium to participate in these draft opens at SCG, and they take out the foils to sell. Always makes me feel just a little but cheated.
So does every TO that runs a GP. There are no foils in professional level drafts. That way every pack has a proper common, uncommon, rare ratio.
Side events still have foils, you just rip open and draft those packs.
The hell is this stuff about RUW being called America? The actual colours of Team America are BUG and the name is an inside joke about the Non-American team who invented the deck using cards that the Americans never played.
Wasn't it called Team America because it "Bombed all the Lands" (played wasteland, sinkhole and stifle)?
That "large cities" argument doesn't work. I live 30 minutes from Chicago, a large city the last time I checked, and no SCG Open has been here since I've picked the game back up in earnest in 2008. I doubt they had anything before that as well. Someone from SCG actually replied back to me in the past and claimed the issue was both venue and money. I took that answer as a joke and never got the real reason.
That is most certainly the real reason. From talking to people who work at or with Pasttimes, it probably costs 3x to host in Chicago what it would cost to host in Indy. Pretty sure the WIFI at Navy pier cost as much as the room did for the TCG Player 50k at the Indy Convention center.
Since Indy events tend to be the biggest SCG events, why pay more to come up to us in Chicago? Every chicago area player I know is just as happy to drive to STL, Madison, Detroit or Indy (I love Indy, it's like my favorite midwest city to have an event in due to the downtown layout).
That's not to say they couldn't hold something in like Naperville or Schaumburg or the like, but people do get all whiny when SCG:Boston is an hour outside the city, for example.
But when you ask yourself "why do few major events come to Chicago", cost is 100% your answer. Well, 90%. The other 10% is the hassle of dealing with the unions for set up and break down of everything.
SCG usually has an open or 3 in the north west every year. Along with others in the western US.
However, they are located in Virginia, so you will find that most of their opens are located east of the Mississippi. I imagine it is far cheaper for them to host an Open in Indy than Seattle, if just for travel costs for their crew, equipment and inventory.
Regarding the playing 2 lands at the very end of time in the Jund v. U/W match, If i remember from watching the stream live the player who laid the marsh flats asks his opponent if he had played a land this turn, they both think about it a second and decide he hasnt. I thought he had, but wasnt sure either from watching it live cause they were both flying.
In 1994 when I first started playing and all they had was those clear plastic sleeves, I still at least used them. I never in my life played without sleeves unless it was draft and I just happened to forget to bring some to play with and didn't have money to buy any. I think that happened ONCE.
Best part is that sleeves were the taboo back then. You could be asked to de-sleeve your deck at competitive and professional level events because sleeves were thought to be easier to mark than cards.
This is why Alpha cards weren't played in tournaments for a long time (and why their value remained or remains below beta despite now being fine to play) and when you watch old PT footage, everyone is playing unsleeved.
That said, this is a pretty soft GP, with such a low attendance (man, wish we had 250-man GPs over here, from a purely selfish standpoint :p), and most well known pros not in attendance. I'd still rate it higher than SCG open events though.
It's debatable if a 260 person GP in NZ should be rated higher than an SCG open as far as impact on the metagame or what people will see in their stores.
Not anything against the players or the region, but an event that smaller than pretty much every Open in the US that had no video coverage and few (if any) notable pros (I imagine a flight from Japan isn't cheap, so it looks like their pros stayed home) may be overlooked by a lot of people. Especially when even Wizards focused their coverage on GP Lyon as well.
However, that isn't to say the technology coming out of that tournament should be ignored. The cream will still rise to the top of a 13 round tournament. Chapin did a nice breakdown of both events in today's article.
Just like the U/W/R midrange was a Japanese decklist initially, it gained a majority of it's popularity following an SCG open. The value of a tournament can't be gauged by it's size or coverage, but it's impact on the metagame at your local shop (which I imagine is what most readers here care about) sure can.
I dismissed personal tutor outright, but it could be worth trying. Intuition gets Omni or Emrakul if you already have the sorcery parts. If I were to try and fit a tutor in, it would probably be in place of the 2nd top or 4th preordain.
Lab maniac was in the deck for corner cases like that, yeah. Leylines were for Jund (and I would consider them against esper stoneblade), cages for dredge/reanimation strategies. Everything else is a wish target that will sometimes get sided in (misdirection gets sided in a lot as a 5th force of will).
Recall should have been a flusterstorm.
Tips or pointers would probably be have little fear game one and practice matches against Jund, RUG and Stoneblade. The Show and tell psuedo-mirrors may become a thing, but practicing them isn't needed really, just form a plan of attack as the game moves on because the gamestate will be very fluid.
Jund, RUG and Blade all present 2 angles of attack (Discard/Clock, Clock/Countermagic and Countermagic/Discard) so you need to be prepared for them. Jund you tend to go for it ASAP, RUG you wait to the last possible moment and Blade you wiggle in when you can (I beat blade decks 3 times in the swiss, including bernal who eliminated me in the top 8 and I feel lucky to have done so).
If stoneblade starts adopting geist more regularly, the match becomes really bad and it is probably already the worst match up. I didnt not bring in leylines against it, but if you know they are going to have 7+ pieces of post board discard, you probably should.
The field was heavily combo, RUG and Blade and Jund was pretty much gone from the top tables after round 5 or 6.
I only played against Jund once and I don't think I cast a monolith. also, if they spend 2 mana killing your monolith, they arent putting a threat in play or shredding your hand.
It was also the card I sideboarded out the most (it is very easy to shave if you arent presented with a clock from your opponent and legacy is pretty slow right now)
My wish board needed a flusterstorm and I was stupid for not playing one (WHY DID I PLAY A HURKYL'S RECALL?).
I am not sure if the 4 Cages are needed, I never saw a GY deck. If you trim one, you could have another wish target or a second flusterstorm.
I do not believe there is.
I believe a TO could ban it.
I am also reasonably certain being drunk is against the tournament rules, but actually drinking is not.
For Opens and GPs, I usually bring some Clif bars/Granola bars, trail mix with fruit & nuts and a bag of beef jerky. Convention center food is almost always expensive and usually awful, but I find it hard to stay focused without some food, especially protein (hence the nuts and jerky). And I always have a refillable water bottle.
Except "no ban" doesnt always equal "stale format". They can shift entire meta games with the cards they print, look at what Deathrite and Abrupt decay did to legacy.
And before anyone says "well sets are designed well in advance so they couldnt just print a card right now to fix the problem", that's a load of crap. Bloodbraid had to be on their radar as far as "cards that could warp the format" since they banned every other card that has warped a standard format in the modern era (Bitterblossom, JTMS, Stoneforge, Artifact lands, Skull Clamp, etc). They had to know if the span of a year, they were going to introduce good 3 mana flashback spells, 3 mana planeswalker, 2 mana uncounterable removal spell and a 1 mana super birds of paradise that would all interact favorably with BBE in Jund's colors. I don't know what it would be, but they could have printed a card to interact with jund and it's cascade somehow.
Seeing as how Jace was mediocre at best when Jund was the best deck in format, I am pretty sure he is ok if they don't ban any of the many cards that deal with him very well in the modern card pool.
Jace was a problem in standard when they saw fit to let BBE, Maelstrom Pulse, Lightning bolt and oblivion ring all rotate, while providing no real analogs to those cards in the sets that replaced them.
As modern stands right now, there are a lot of cards to keep Jace in check.
So does every TO that runs a GP. There are no foils in professional level drafts. That way every pack has a proper common, uncommon, rare ratio.
Side events still have foils, you just rip open and draft those packs.
Wasn't it called Team America because it "Bombed all the Lands" (played wasteland, sinkhole and stifle)?
That is most certainly the real reason. From talking to people who work at or with Pasttimes, it probably costs 3x to host in Chicago what it would cost to host in Indy. Pretty sure the WIFI at Navy pier cost as much as the room did for the TCG Player 50k at the Indy Convention center.
Since Indy events tend to be the biggest SCG events, why pay more to come up to us in Chicago? Every chicago area player I know is just as happy to drive to STL, Madison, Detroit or Indy (I love Indy, it's like my favorite midwest city to have an event in due to the downtown layout).
That's not to say they couldn't hold something in like Naperville or Schaumburg or the like, but people do get all whiny when SCG:Boston is an hour outside the city, for example.
But when you ask yourself "why do few major events come to Chicago", cost is 100% your answer. Well, 90%. The other 10% is the hassle of dealing with the unions for set up and break down of everything.
However, they are located in Virginia, so you will find that most of their opens are located east of the Mississippi. I imagine it is far cheaper for them to host an Open in Indy than Seattle, if just for travel costs for their crew, equipment and inventory.
Best part is that sleeves were the taboo back then. You could be asked to de-sleeve your deck at competitive and professional level events because sleeves were thought to be easier to mark than cards.
This is why Alpha cards weren't played in tournaments for a long time (and why their value remained or remains below beta despite now being fine to play) and when you watch old PT footage, everyone is playing unsleeved.
It's debatable if a 260 person GP in NZ should be rated higher than an SCG open as far as impact on the metagame or what people will see in their stores.
Not anything against the players or the region, but an event that smaller than pretty much every Open in the US that had no video coverage and few (if any) notable pros (I imagine a flight from Japan isn't cheap, so it looks like their pros stayed home) may be overlooked by a lot of people. Especially when even Wizards focused their coverage on GP Lyon as well.
However, that isn't to say the technology coming out of that tournament should be ignored. The cream will still rise to the top of a 13 round tournament. Chapin did a nice breakdown of both events in today's article.
Just like the U/W/R midrange was a Japanese decklist initially, it gained a majority of it's popularity following an SCG open. The value of a tournament can't be gauged by it's size or coverage, but it's impact on the metagame at your local shop (which I imagine is what most readers here care about) sure can.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10685