Zak and Zack #6 - Modern Masters Draft

Since the last one was so much fun, Zack and I decided to record another Modern Masters Draft. Check it out! Remember you can find all my magic videos at www.youtube.com/zturchansky.

Zak and Zack #5 - Modern Masters Draft

For the first time in a while, I got together with Zack 'metaknightmare' Levine to do a Modern Masters draft on Magic Online. Enjoy!

New MTGO Custom Art Page

Hey guys, school has been very hectic for me over the past few weeks with assignments and projects all entering crunch time. So while I'm not really able to write anything profound about magic at the moment, I thought I could do something that I haven't seen anyone do before and thats create a repository of custom mtgo art. Magic Online sadly does not name it's art files in any truly meaningful way, so aside from some general trends identifying the art file for a given card is generally a bit of work. So what makes this new feature to the blog awesome is that all the hard work has been done for you. You can look through the new "Custom MTGO Art" page linked in the top nav bar and download any art that you like, with the correct filename. This makes any effort on your part practically zero! The page also has step-by-step instructions for how to swap the art so you can do it to any cards you want with your own art. If you have any questions or find any problems with the new page, let me know! Every time I customize some more art I'll make a new post here and put it at the top of the art page.

I'm playing a paper PTQ this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some sweet tales when I get back.

Cheers,

Zak

Mono Black in the New Pauper

Hello everyone,
I've been extremely busy with school (funny how that works) and have had limited opportunity for playing MTGO, leaving me with a sparse 14 QPs as of this moment for Season 3. Needless to say I'll be trying hard to get the last one so I can at least play the prelims and snag a Lotus Cobra for this season.  In addition, I've been trying a bunch of things in all the formats and haven't found anything I'm super certain of or confident in (focussing on Standard, Pauper & Modern), at least until the last few days.

The Problem With Pauper

As of the last ban list update, Pauper has been shaken up.  The number of banned cards in Pauper has been momre than doubled with Invigorate, Grapeshot, and Empty the Warrens being added to the list to accompany Cranial Plating & Frantic Search.  The general idea is that these cards were some of the biggest offenders for turn 2 wins and generally non-interactive games of magic.

This logic may seem well and good, but most pauper veterans have been disappointed with the resulting format.  I know the moment I read the update I said out loud "Did they forget to ban Cloudpost?".  The main reason Cloudpost wasn't a dominating strategy before was that both infect and storm decks were fast enough to keep it in check, and the post player would have to dilute their plan with cards that let them survive in the early game.  Furthermore, the cards used to fight infect and storm were completely different, meaning that decks could generally count on some number of blanks in the post deck during game 1.  Without these decks keeping the post decks in check, Cloudpost can sit back and develop it's mana/card advantage with fewer repercussions.

What also made me sad about the bans was that I predicted a severe hit in power level to my then deck-of-choice: Monoblue Delver/Faeries.  As an aggro-control deck, the Delver deck was able to present early pressure and then counter enough spells to leverage wins.  Decks like storm and infect were both favourable in my experience, but by no more than 60% or so, and there was still a fair bit of play to the matchup and anyone could win.  With those decks gone (or at least neutered), the strength of Delver to combat the unfair decks waned.  This meant I had to figure out something new.

Now this was my initial prediction for what would happen to the format, and it wasn't too far off.  Cloudpost received a large boost in popularity but is far from the only deck that's doing well.  The new Boogeyman of the format is everyone's favourite Modern Deck: Bogles.  Using Ancestral Mask, Rancor, Wild Growth, Armadillo Cloak, and hexproof creatures, this deck can quickly pump out damage in a way that is both fast and difficult to disrupt.  Armadillo Cloak on a large hexproof guy is about the biggest trump to any other aggro deck you can think of, and decks like Cloudpost better counter your key auras or be on the receiving end of a very angry Slippery Bogle.

Several classic decks have also picked up in popularity, notably Affinity and Stompy.  People are still playing Infect, although much less than before, and Delver decks have picked up Cloudfin Raptor (which I think is terrible due to the few ways you can evolve it).  Goblins, Elves and Esper Storm are both seeing play, along with a smattering of other decks.

What Didn't Work

I tried a few things in this format.  I first picked up Stompy on the advice of _Batutinha_, but quickly discarded it for the same reason I had discarded stompy in the past: It's too inconsistent, and is a worse version of Bogles.

Shortly after I tried out both Delver and Affinity.  Delver (as per my assumptions) seemed to be just poorly positioned against the field (being not great vs the control decks (Cloudpost), the aggro decks (Bogles), or the slower but more resilient combo decks (Esper Storm)).  Affinity went better, but remained weak to Bogles when you didn't draw Serene Heart or Krark-Clan Shaman.  It was a fun experience, and I might revisit it in the future, but it was also slightly more variance-prone than I'd prefer.

This last weekend, I attempted an idea I'd been thinking about for some time.  With the addition of Izzet Guildgate, I had wanted to try a blue-red burn deck, using all the great burn spells of red combined with Phantasmal Bear, Delver of Secrets, Frostburn Weird and Daze.  The card I really wanted to play was Razorfin Hunter (which I ended up putting in the sideboard) as a way to clear out small blockers and reduce the efficacy of Spellstutter Sprite.  Sadly, while the deck was extremely fun, the Bogles matchup was almost unwinnable without an early Martyr of Ashes, and the 17 land, 4 guildgate manabase was what one might call "too ambitious".

What's Left?

I sat down and thought about what I wanted to do in the format.  I wanted a deck that could beat Bogles consistently, have an OK-Good Cloudpost matchup, and be resilient against everything else.  My initial answer was an old friend that hasn't been getting much love: Mono Black Control.

I initially (subconsciously even) discounted mono black because of the same reasons I disliked delver.  Both infect and storm were your top 2 matchups, and were effectively eliminated from the format.  But all this meant is I had more liberty with how I built the deck to give myself some extra percentage points in matchups where I used to have slots devoted to infect/storm.

The big things I knew I wanted were 4 Geth's Verdict and 4 Crypt Rats.  Verdict (and Edicts in general) are almost certainly the best way to go about attacking the aura deck, punishing the all-in plays that give the deck its free wins.  Furthermore, should your opponent spread several auras among many creatures, a smaller Crypt Rats activation can stabilize the board.  I also decided that 4 edicts was not enough for how favoured I wanted to be vs Bogles, so I went to 7.  Since I only have 1 Diabolic Edict at the moment and am too cheap to buy more at 3 tix each, I'm running Devour Flesh to shore up the numbers.  To augment the Crypt Rats plan, I wanted the full 4 Unearths, giving me the opportunity to sweep the board (& finish games) consistently.  Previous versions has been shaving on the numbers of Unearths but because the format has slowed down by a few turns, I feel that you can get away with running 4.

Since Storm is no longer a thing, Echoing Decay can safely be cut, and spells like Dead Weight, Disfigure, Spinning Darkness and Doom Blade are blanks vs Bogles and so can be relegated to the sideboard.  At the core of the mono black deck, we have a bunch of small creatures that disrupt out opponent's hand when they enter the battlefield.  Chittering Rats, Liliana's Specter, Ravenous Rats, and Augur of Skulls fill these slots.

To ensure a steady supply of cards, Sign in Blood and Phyrexian Rager have been monoblack mainstays and get to keep their slots.

I rounded out the deck with some Cuombajj Witches (which over performed during the last time I played mono black), and a random Undying Evil to get people (If it's good enough for standard it's good enough for me :)).

Note that since this is still a 1st draft, there are a lot of numbers that might be (and probably are) wrong.  I want to test a lot of these cards to see exactly how good they are in the current format (Specters, Augurs, Ravenous Rats, Witches namely), so there are more 2-ofs than in a polished list.

For the sideboard, I'm on the age-old plan of playign 8 Stone Rains against Cloudpost.  Your whole game plan in that matchup is to make the game as unfair as possible.  You want to get them topdecking as fast as possible and have very few lands, all while applying pressure.  Cloudpost players will (obviously) lead with their Cloudposts as soon as they draw them.  You'll generally want to hold your land destruction spells for the first Cloudpost, but if you have an opening on turn 4 or 5 you can generally start stoning random lands so long as you have punished their hand.  Especially when they don't have a Prophetic Prism, taking them off coloured sources can be just as crippling as killing their namesake land.  If at any point they have a good chunk of mana and cards you've likely lost and will need to steal the game with a large Crypt Rats activation from nowhere.  Also, while it may be tempting to baord out all your removal, I suggest keeping in ~3 Geth's verdicts to deal with Sea Gate Oracles and/or Mulldrifters that get n your way.  The last thing you want to give the post deck is time, and if you aren't hitting them every turn (even if only for a few damage) then the game is slowly getting away from you.

Tendrils of Corruption is a card I've never liked in mono black, and people might be wondering why I'm including it.  First, notice that I'm running no targeted removal in my maindeck.  7 edicts and 4 Crypt Rats are the only real ways to kill things (Unearth if you count it).  Again, the whole reason I made that choice was because of Bogles, and so I want some targeted removal postboard to remove important threats from other creature based decks.  In addition to killing Myr Enforcers, Sparksmiths, and Quirion Rangers, Tendrils gains me a reasonable amount of life which can translate into extra turns, or more/bigger Crypt Rats Activations.  Whereas in previous versions I already had lots of very efficient removal, and having Tendrils in the board would be a redundant waste of a slot, it plays a larger, more important role in this build.

Filling out the sideboard we have one additional edict (Have you realized I hate losing to bogles yet?) and a couple duress for various combo/control matchups.


Here's the Final List (MTGO text file).

4 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Polluted Mire
14 Swamp
2 Augur of Skulls
4 Chittering Rats
4 Crypt Rats
2 Cuombajj Witches
2 Liliana's Specter
1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Phyrexian Rager
3 Ravenous Rats
2 Devour Flesh
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Sign in Blood
1 Undying Evil
4 Unearth

Sideboard
4 Choking Sands
1 Devour Flesh
2 Duress
4 Icequake
2 Spinning Darkness
2 Tendrils of Corruption



I cashed a daily last night with this list, losing only to Goblins in the finals after I made a misplay and got deservedly punished.  I think the deck is exactly what I want to be doing in the format.

As I said before this is not a polished list, but there's a lot I like about it.  The Undying Evil was amazing, and Crypt Rats proved to be the MVP of the deck.  I beat stompy and 2 post decks, and they played out about the way I wanted/expected.  A useful trick I did vs stompy when they have a Young Wolf/Safehold Elite is to double activate Crypt Rats in response to itself to ensure you kill both halves of their creature.  If you want to kill an Elite activate rats for 1, hold CTRL, and then activate for 2.  If you want to kill a Wolf do the same in the opposite order.

Anyway, I think that's it.  I'm sure I'll discover more nuances of mono black in this specific format in the coming weeks, but I suggest you play this deck on MTGO if you're into pauper.  It's fun, interactive, and can win, which is pretty much what I look for in a deck.

Until next time, Cheers,

Zak

Season 2 MOCS Preliminary Recap

(Note: This post will be updated throughout the day as rounds finish, be sure to keep checking back!)  

Hello Everyone,

Due to the deflation of Return to Ravnica packs during the weeks leading up to gatecrash, I was not able to justify grinding constructed dailies as much as I had during season 1.  Now that we have packs worth more than 3 tickets (albeit only slightly) I'm getting back into the DE grind, with quite the rocky start.  Anyways, I  managed to accrue just over 15 qps from Zendikar drafts, as well as release sealeds, meaning I had to enter a MOCS prelim and try and 5-1 or better to get into the main event.  Both MOCS events are standard, and seeing as I have not managed to acquire sets of all the shocklands or Boros Reckoners, my deck choice was somewhat limited, so I opted to play Ben Stark's Esper list from the pro tour.

For those of you who don't know the exact structure of the MCOS prelims, let me break it down for you.  They are 6 round swiss tournaments that cost 15 qps to enter.
6-0 gets you 35 qps (effectively qualifying you for the monthly championship) and a foil Supreme Verdict.
5-1 gets you 35 qps and a normal Supreme Verdict.
4-2 gets you a normal Supreme Verdict.
Anything else = nothing!

MTGO Deck Text File

Round 1: vs Gruul Aggro
This match was a pretty textbook example of what this deck does well.  I get in the way of his random dudes with Augurs and stall with Azorious Charms.  Then, I play 2-3 consecutive wraths into Sphinx's Revelation and my opponent concedes.  Game 2 is pretty much an exact repeat.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2: vs UWR Lucky Charms
Not having had much standard practice with decks that aren't mindless aggro, this matchup was new for me. In game one we both stumble on mana, with him not drawing a white source until turn 6, and me drawing 3 Nephalia Drownyard, which severely hindered my ability to cycle through my deck with my cantrips while fending off 3 Boros Reckoners.  He hits his mana first and prompty starts to burn me out with a turn consisting of Boros Charm -> Searing Spear -> Snapcaster -> Searing Spear and I die.  In game 2, we both hit our lands earlier, but I'm unable to efficiently deal with all his threats and take a few too many reckoner hits before being triple boros charmed out without having draw a Sphinx's Revelation that I would have needed to stabilize or pull ahead.

So no foil for us, just gotta 4-0 the rest of these.

1-1 (2-2)

Round 3: vs Jund Midrange

In game 1, my opponent mulligans and then has no play until turn 3 Arbor Elf -> Turn 4 Thragtusk.  In the meantime I'm able to develop my hand and land base and easily dispatch it with a removal spell and wrath follow up, taking out a Huntmaster of the Fells as well.  After that, he's simply not able to apply any pressure, and bonfires me (hardcast) for x=3 both times to little effect.  When he casts a Rakdos's Return off the top for 6, I respond with a Revelation for 8 (while having 6 cards in hand already) and he packs it in.

In game 2, my opponent gets a much quicker start with a turn 3 Liliana of the Veil and immediately starts making us discard.  I'm able to land a turn 4 Witchbane Orb, which thankfully takes off the pressure from a potential Lily ultimate.  My opponent plays a Huntmaster, which I let flip (The Orb saving me the 2 damage to the face) and I start to block his wolf with my Augur of Bolas.  I have a Planar Cleansing in in my hand and I wait an extra turn after seeing him not +1 Lily to see if I can extract more value, knowing that casting it will make me vulnerable to Rakdos's Return and Slaughter Games without the safety of the Orb.  He plays a land and attacks with 1 card in hand and I cast the cleansing.  We're now both effectively topdecking but I have a Nephalia Drownyard and I start the mill plan.  I draw a second one soon after, along with enough removal to not let him establish any kind of board presence, and he concedes with no board and 19 cards in library, despite having Slaughter Games'd both Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict (which he knew I was holding at the time).  We're still alive for the MOCS!

2-1 (4-2)

Round 4: Esper Control Mirror
Game 1: I draw Nephalia Drownyard, he doesn't.
Game 2: I resolve Jace, he resolves Witchbane Orb.  I'm eventually forced to Planar Cleansing.  I have 3 coutners in hand, with the mana and card advantage (he has Drownyard Advantage).  If I draw Psychic Spiral, Snapcaster Mage, or Jace I win the game.  I cast 3 revelations and multiple Think twices, hitting nothing but bricks, he mills all my outs.
Game 3: He taps 2 mana on turn 4 to cast a midcombat Think Twice.  I cast Jace on turn 5, he casts Orb.  I go through ~4 turns of using the +1 on myself and switch to an aggressive plan with 2 Restoration Angels.  He's able to resolve an Obzedat, and his own angel which makes my race much harder.  I foolishly tap my last 3 mana on his end step to flashback a Think Twice, and he puts himself out of damage range with a Revelation.  I'm able to dig pretty deep and resolve a Planar Cleansing with counter backup, but I'm at 7 life with only 3 mana.  He end of turn Psychic Spirals me, which I can counter but then I can't Azorius Charm the Obzedat when he comes back.

MOCS dream dead for this month :/, still playing for a promo.

2-2 (5-4)

Round 5: vs Gruul
In game one my opponent mulls to 5, plays a Rootbound Crag and concedes shortly after.  I assume my opponent is on an aggressive deck (rather than something like Jund Midrange) and board appropriately.  He leads off game 2 with turn 2 double Burning-Tree Emissary into Rancor, and I defend with a Gloom Surgeon, but it gets Pillared and he follows up with an Ash Zealot.  My opponent then casts Hellrider, and I'm able to charm his rancored emissary to stay alive at 1, needing to rip a Supreme Verdict Immediately to have any chance of winning.  Sadly, I see another land on top and move to sideboarding.
In the final game, my opponent starts off fast, but hits a glut of mana on turns 3-5 and I'm able to stabilize with Gloom Surgeon.  When I cast an Angel of Serenity into an empty board, my opponent complains in chat and then times out.

3-2 (7-5)

Round 6: vs Gruul
I was triple queuing at the time, including 2 events with the same esper deck so I forgot specifics of what happened (and mtgo doesn't let you watch your own replays).  Regardless, we got there and earned a supreme verdict.  Not happy, but i guess we got something XD.

Cheers,

Zak

Standard Decklist - Monored (CMT Winner)

Hello everyone,

I was streaming some dailies tonight at twitch.tv/zturchan and played a mono red list in standard recently piloted by my friend Josh to win the Canadian Magic Tour Stop in Edmonton.  For those that missed the stream or wanted the decklist, here it is:

Cheers,

Zak

Announcement: Pro Tour Coverage Update

Hello everyone,

So after spending a belated Valentine's Day with my girlfriend, I saw this tweet:

Looks like I'll be in the booth tomorrow with @mtgrich and @top8games for the Top 8, starting at 11! #PTGTC
— Luis Scott-Vargas (@lsv) February 16, 2013

Because the whole reason for me doing this commentary was to offer a higher level of game analysis on the Pro Tour, I feel that there is no real point to do coverage tomorrow (as much as I was looking forward to it).  There is nothing I can say in my commentary that you can't hear from LSV, and anyone actually looking to improve their magic game should watch the official coverage.

To make up for this, I'll be streaming a few times this week, as it is Reading Week.  I'm also still be interested in doing commentary for paper tournaments, but I'd rather not compete with the likes of LSV.  Perhaps I'll look into doing some of the constructed Grand Prix or SCG Invitationals (depending on who is commentating).

The top 8 tomorrow is looking great, and I'm personally hoping for Melissa DeTora to win the event, because I think having a female PT winner would do a great amount of good for Magic as a game.  That said, this top 8 is so stacked that I have a hard time actually picking who's likely to win.

Anyways, good luck to all the competitors, and good job on WotC and LSV for getting a better commentator for tomorrow's top 8.

Cheers,

Zak

Announcing Pro Tour Gatecrash Top 8 Commentary

Hello Everyone!  As I previously alluded to, school has been extremely busy for me this term and as such it's been hard for me to dedicate a chunk of time to writing my first big article.  Rest assured it is coming, but I can't give you a hard timeline.

However, yesterday I was thinking about the upcoming pro tour, and how excited I was to see what happens in the new standard.  I'm pretty sick of the current format and I'm ready for some new decks to shine and make me love standard again.  However, with the awesome new decks and familiar faces playing a new format at the highest level that we've come to associate with each Pro Tour, also comes the coverage itself.

While I have nothing against the current WotC coverage team of Rich Hagon, Zack Hill, BDM et al, I believe that I (and many other competitive players) are simply not the target audience of the official commentary.  Obviously the Pro Tour is Wizards' biggest marketing expense, and they want to make the coverage as accessible as possible to everyone who plays magic, which means a lot more low-level commentary than some  of us would like.  Again, this is what WotC should be doing if they want to get more people into the pro scene (which in turn sells more packs, etc) and I don't fault them for their commentary style.

Consequently, every PT I hope someone would give me something more in terms of audio commentary.  I want to hear a more in-depth analysis of the incredibly high-level games being played out, rather than the fundamentals of magic that I've known forever and are not new to me.  So I figured, why not do it myself?

How is this going to work?
The concept of an audio rebroadcast is already widely used in the Starcraft 2 community, mot notably in the SK Planet Proleague where the community has voiced similar discontent with the commentary team.  First, you'll have to open the official video feed at twitch.tv/magicprotour.  Then, mute the official audio.  Then, fire up my stream at www.twitch.tv/zturchan and leave the audio on, but minimize my stream (or have it on another monitor if you want a smaller, more intimate chat experience).  Enjoy!

When is this happening?
Because this is my first time doing this, I will only be casting the top 8 on February 17th.  This is for a few reasons.  First, I get to watch the first few days of coverage on my own and learn the story lines and deck archetypes of the tournament, and prepare some sort of notes so as to bring you a more informative, exciting and smoother top 8 cast.  In addition, top 8 decklists are  public information, which makes doing analysis much easier.  Conversely, during the swiss I don't know the decklists of everyone, so any commentary would feature a larger amount of guesswork.

Will this happen again?
If all goes well, I would like to continue doing this for Pro Tours.  I'm uncertain if I will expand to doing other events.  I'd rather do a great job of a few events per year than an okay job of more events.

If you want to help with this (or any other endeavor) or have any questions, feel free to tweet me (@zturchan) or email me (zak.turchansky@gmail.com).

I look forward to the broadcast on the 17th.

Cheers,

Zak

Obligatory Introductory Post

Hi everyone.  Most of you will know me from either battling me on Magic Online, my youtube, twitch stream, or twitter, and are wondering why I've started a magic blog right now.  I also used to write for power9pro.com before that kinda sorta fell apart.  I'm here because for the last 6 months I've been playing a lot of magic, and magic at a reasonable level at that.  During this time I've had a bunch of article ideas floating around my head, but nowhere to write them.  Now I have somewhere.

A lot of people have asked why I don't pursue one of the established sites.  There are a few reasons.  First and foremost is that I lack significant results.   My best Magic achievements so far are:

-Top 8 2009 Provincials (Standard, played Spread 'Em)
-Top 8 2011 National Qualifiers and subsequent Nationals appearance (Standard, played Bant Caw Blade)
-Qualified for MOCS 2012 player of the year (Constructed)
-Top 16 MTGO PTQ Gatecrash (Return to Ravnica Sealed)

That's it.  ~3 years of playing this game competitively and that's what I have to show for it (not even a PTQ top 8).  And whether or not that's sufficient for me, or you reading this to take me seriously is irrelevant.  The fact is it's not in a site's best interest to take up a relative unknown to write about high level magic, and until I feel like what I can deliver will appeal to the wider audience of those sites, I won't seek out another home for my thoughts.

The other reason I don't pursue somewhere more established to produce content is that I'm still in school.  And while I dedicate almost every moment I'm not in class or doing homework to becoming better at magic, I can't be held to any sorts of deadlines for content production.  Classes, projects, exams and labs all come before Magic, which leaves me with fewer hours in a week to play, let alone write.  So while I'll try my best to at least post something here every week or so, even if just a short status update with a decklist or two, I can't make any sort of guarantees.

So at the end of the day, what makes me different from the hundreds of other sources of magic content out there?  Why should you read this blog or watch my stream or videos?  It's about brute-forcing my way into the magic scene.

Let me explain.  Most of the magic names you hear about are already established in their pro or semipro circles.  They have their pro points, their SCG open top 8s, the podcasts they host, etc.  People listen to them because of that, and that's fine.  I love me some LSV or Kibler content as much as the next person: they're very good at magic and have a knack for creating content.  But that doesn't change the fact that their position in the magic community is largely unattainable for most players (even ones who aren't necessarily new to the game).  Some random person can't just go test with Team Fireball, hell even most of their writers don't test with the core group.  That's one of the biggest reasons why we consistently see those names doing well at the GP and PT level.

So here I am, with a burning passion for magic and winning, sitting outside of the higher levels of the magic community, and it's my goal to break in.  I want to be the one hoisting a magic trophy.  I want to be the one firing up my stream and giving a victory speech about winning an MOCS.  Call me silly if you will, but this is one of the few dreams I have in life that I actively put a great deal of effort into.  The way I'm going about this (Magic Online and local PTQs, etc) is not the only way to do it (hell I'm not sure it's the optimal way) but damnit if I'm not gonna be the best modo player I can be.

So the point of this blog is to give me some form of creative expression regarding the game I love, but also to (hopefully) prove that given a large amount of hard work (and very little talent) can pay off.

Join me, won't you?