Magic the Gathering

Constructed

Off the Beaten Path – I’m Not Dead Yet

First of all, I’d like to offer con­grat­u­la­tions to Brian Kibler on his “Dewey defeats Tru­man” moment on his run to the Pro Tour-Austin cham­pi­onship. (Lis­ten to Randy Buehler at the end his quar­ter­fi­nal match on the web­cast and you’ll know what I’m talk­ing about.) Noth­ing like Banes­layer Angel to get past Prog­en­i­tus of all things.
And now back to our reg­u­larly sched­uled arti­cle. It’s clear that Zoo has estab­lished itself as the deck to beat going into Worlds and this winter’s extended PTQ sea­son, with Hyper­ge­n­e­sis, Dredge, and Dark Depths not far behind. But there were a few wel­come blasts from the recent and not so recent past that earned some play­ers a good chunk of Pro Points, if not a date with the Sun­day stage. Here are some of my favorite devi­a­tions from the pack.

Gar­cia piloted the lone Tooth and Nail deck with 18+ points in the extended rounds. Not only was his deck choice a fun throw­back, but some of his card choices were throw­backs as well. Some would think that Mephidross Vam­pire is well past its prime in an age with Empyr­ial Archangel, Inkwell Leviathan, and other poten­tially higher qual­ity fat­ties, but Gar­cia didn’t think so, as he included the Vam­pire along­side Iona, Shield of Eme­ria and Painter’s Ser­vant – a combo that enables a much faster scoop than any other com­bi­na­tion Tooth could oth­er­wise enable. Gad­dock Teeg and Blood Moon may prob­lem­atic if they hit early, but that’s where Obliv­ion Stone, Trin­i­sphere, and Krosan Grip come in handy. Were it not for a lack­lus­ter show­ing in the draft por­tion for Gar­cia, we may have seen Tooth make its way to the top 8.

What a novel con­cept! Light­ning Bolt in the Light­ning Bolt Deck! I tried play­ing this deck in the last Extended PTQ’s but wor­ried too much about my oppo­si­tion pre-board. Thus, it took a lot of speed out of the deck and cost me a cou­ple of matchups I could’ve won. Dupont wor­ries very lit­tle about his oppo­si­tion, and his side­board is ded­i­cated mostly to Dredge, which was a very good choice, see­ing as it was the second-most played deck in Austin. After that, Blood Moon for Hyper­ge­n­e­sis and Smash to Smithereens for Affin­ity and other prob­lem arti­facts show he has come up with the ulti­mate bud­get choice for PTQ play­ers in Jan­u­ary.

While Lucas Siow’s Hexmage/Thopter Gifts was fea­tured on the moth­er­ship, Shouta Yasooka’s more tra­di­tional build of Gifts Ungiven fin­ished a full nine places higher than Siow and $475 richer. With four copies of Gifts to get any­thing in the tool­box your heart desires, plus Eme­ria, the Sky Ruin, Life from the Loam and Eter­nal Wit­ness to get those pieces back, the ver­sa­tile threats in this deck make it another force to be reck­oned with come PTQ sea­son. Sure, you can say what you want about a sin­gle Duress in the side­board, but who are we to argue with one of the Japan­ese masters?

I always love to see “for­got­ten” arche­types make strong show­ings at PTQs, Grand Prix, and Pro Tours. In a world where for­mats are defined by maybe two, three, or four decks, to see an over­con­fi­dent player get rolled by a legit­i­mate deck he never saw com­ing brings a smile to my face. Hav­ing said that, you can’t expect every player in a major tour­na­ment to be play­ing a dif­fer­ent set of 75 cards. Any­one who gets into that mind­set clearly has not been to Fri­day Night Magic or even left their kitchen table. (With all due respect to kitchen table play­ers who might choose never to see the inside of a PTQ, this is just how tour­na­ment play­ers oper­ate.) Why do you think we have the term “metagame-defining”? It’s for cards and decks that show their supe­ri­or­ity over all challengers.

You can talk about the afore­men­tioned decks, along with Dark Depths, Dredge, and Hyper­ge­n­e­sis all you want, but in the end, Zoo is the deck du jour, no two ways about it. As Brian David-Marshall pointed out dur­ing the web­cast, “it’s the new Rock” – that is, there is not one con­formist or median list. You can now tai­lor Zoo to your metagame with var­i­ous inter­change­able parts. Whether you build it around Domain with Tribal Flames and Might of Alara, or around the Pun­ish­ing Fire — Grove of the Burn­wil­lows combo (which we might look at down the road as one of the great­est inno­va­tions of all time), or any other method, one thing’s for sure: if you’re not play­ing Zoo, you bet­ter be pre­pared to beat it.

I may sound like I’m con­tra­dict­ing myself, but let me remind you that I am not telling you what to play. When I say “if you’re not play­ing Zoo, you bet­ter be pre­pared to beat it,” I do not mean to say other arche­types are not viable. Do not come into a Extended PTQ with a deck only geared to beat Zoo – you will be dis­ap­pointed. There’s no sense in play­ing the best deck in the room if you can’t play it properly.

See you next week for another look at Stan­dard, includ­ing my first analy­sis of a reader-submitted deck. Until then, watch out for those pesky Blood Moons.

–Sam