Nice Play: Michael Hetrick versus Centaur Healer

From M2G2 of this Domri Naya event, Michael Hetrick has to pick a turn three play against a Prime Speaker Bant deck:

I wouldn't mind playing Reckoner, but I still think I would rather have Domri in this situation.... Actually, that's not 100% true. If I Domri +1, we're getting a long game advantage, but he already has the advantage in the long game.

We could Mortars his guy and play Experiment One and attack for three. That also prevents him from Resto-ing the Healer.... Yeah, I guess that's true. Then we could play around the Resto next turn with Rampager.

If we just Domri'ed, we'd be playing a control role, which I don't think we should really be doing. Yeah, we're not gonna do that.

There is a slight downside [to Mortars + Experiment One]. We could save [Mortars] -- but I don't think it's that significant, especially since pretty soon we're gonna have Domri and our Reckoner, which can suffice as removal.

Hetrick should be relieved that it was a Healer instead of a brick-wall Loxodon Smiter, but I like his decision to play Mortars and Experiment One, and I like the logic behind it.

(He's also completely bottle-necked at three mana, so playing Domri to find extra creatures probably won't
do much to win him the game.)

The one other thing I'd consider is just attacking first to see if the opponent cares about Flinthoof Boar. We could do Rampager + Experiment One on a block (since that signals no Restoration Angel) or just deal 3 and cast Reckoner otherwise.

Video: Highlights from Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats

(Working through a backlog of CFB videos.)

Here are some highlights from this recorded 8-man of Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats.

M1G1 -- Sideboarding vs. Naya Aggro

To make room for more removal and Unflinching Courage, Pardee takes out all the Blood Artist and all the Sorin from his deck.

I like Abrupt Decay. I typically like cutting Blood Artist, because -- Blood Artist is really good when we're trading resources, which is what we want to be doing in this matchup, but it doesn't actually make us any ... It makes trading resources better for us, but it doesn't help us successfully trade resources, if that makes sense.

Cartel Aristocrat helps us successfully trade resources -- we're trading a Spirit token to give it protection to hopefully trade for one of his guys. So that's a trade we're willing to do. Blood Artist makes that trade more profitable for us, but we don't need those trades to be more profitable; we just need them to be happening. So I like shaving Blood Artist out.

I think Unflinching Courage is good. I think Sorin's also not very good in this matchup, because he's very slow, especially on the draw. I like Garruk because he can kill -- if they have Fiend Hunter, if they have Avacyn's Pilgrim -- there's just a lot of little guys he can kill.

This seems like a great plan for on the draw versus Naya aggro -- if you make the entire deck about 1-for-1 trades, something like Lingering Souls ends up taking over.

Blood Artist is sort of a combo card in a deck that often wants to scrape card advantage instead of making a combo kill. Making a lot of creatures and pumping them with Sorin and Gavony Township is the "real plan," and Blood Artist just speeds up the kill by one turn when that plan is working. It creates the illusion of a lower creature curve (since it's technically a 2-drop), but I wonder if Selesnya Charm or something would just be more effective.

M2G1 -- Picking a turn two creature

So here's the tricky spot -- whether you play Aristocat or Voice. If they have access to Pillar of Flame (I guess he could still be Jund), it's typically better to play the Aristocrat first, because you don't want to get your Voice killed, so that's why I'm doing that here. The other, secondary, reason is that they're going to hit for the same amount this turn, so it doesn't really matter.

[The opponent plays another GB land and passes.] I guess if I'd played Voice, he would have had to main-phase his [spell] -- I'm guessing he's going to cast a Grisly Salvage here.

This was just a sensible play and good reasoning. Aristocrat before Voice to guarantee you'll get the Elemental.

M3G1 -- What to do with Sorin

The two Searing Spears in the graveyard are, of course, for the Voice of Resurgence in graveyard and the Elemental it made. Pardee untaps and plays Sorin on turn 4 here:

I'm just going to play it and plus it. He could kill it, potentially, with a Warleader's Helix, in which case I'd rather have minus'ed it, but it's not that likely that he has it -- they usually only run 1 or 2 Helixes -- and even in that case, I think I'll be in good shape.

Basically I think it's much more likely that he has something like a Snapcaster for his Searing Spear to kill Sorin, but maybe that just doesn't matter that much and I should just do it anyway. No, I'm gonna plus. I can always minus next turn, unless he has the Warleader's Helix, which I don't think he does. I don't think he would have snap-killed that Voice token if he had a Warleader's Helix.

He goes back and forth on this one before deciding to +1 and make a token. I think the decision is very clear -- even with a power boost, his small army will not be much pressure for a UWR deck with 17 life and 5 cards. Generating a second army of Vampires should be done as quickly as possible.

The +1 is better against the Snapcaster turn that he sniffs out, but it's also better against most other possibilities: Supreme Verdict, Restoration Angel, or just Azorius Charm.

Other notes
- Pardee says that the deck's biggest problem is mana-flood. He plays 22 mana lands + 3 Gavony Township
- He boards out the Skirsdag High Priests against UW decks -- the logic being that sacrificing a Doomed Traveler to trigger Morbid is walking into Supreme Verdict.

Standard: Flinthoof Humans

Took this Naya Blitz deck with singleton sideboard to 8-0 in my last two events. Still a solid Standard archetype. pic.twitter.com/LRU85HxHzk
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

Here's the list laid out in yesterday's winner's circle:

Creature curve 12-21-4-3, topping out at Frontline Medics and Ghor-Clan Rampagers. Zero removal, though the Medics and Firefist Strikers might let you "ignore" creatures you can't kill. Flinthoof Boars with only 8 mountains.

Pedro Carvalho asked about Hamlet Captain over Boar, and Karsten replied with a link to a deck by Andre Mueller.

@_megafone_ I still like Boar to grow Exp. One to 3/3. But you should check Andre Muller's PTQ T8 list: http://t.co/zZLgWGe5vl (1st post)
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

4 Boros Elite, 4 Experiment One, 4 Champion of the Parish

4 Burning-Tree Emissary, 4 Mayor of Avabruck, 4 Lightning Mauler, 4 Flinthoof Boar, 3 Hamlet Captain, 1 Thalia
3 Kessig Malcontents
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Searing Spear
4 Cavern of Souls, 12 Shocklands, 4 M10 duals

That's a creature curve of 12-20-3-3, with 2 actual spells (Searing Spears) and the same 20 lands as Karsten's deck.

There is an 8-card difference between the two maindecks. Karsten has 2 extra Thalia, 2 Firefist Striker, and 4 Frontline Medic, where Mueller has 3 Hamlet Captain, 2 Searing Spear, and 3 Kessig Malcontents.

(Mueller also has an actual 4-of in his sideboard, to protect his Medic-less deck from Supreme Verdicts.)

With its superior 1-drops, Humans has sort of taken over from Saito-style Rg as the top Burning-Tree aggro deck in standard. Running Flinthoof Boar on a 3C Cavern of Souls mana base is bold tech from some very advanced players.

Writing: Against GP Vegas fluff-stats

I think it's pretty neat that 4500 people went to GP Vegas. Here are some complaints about an infographic that tried to illustrate what "4500 people" means.

Graphs that don't fit the numbers:

By the criteria of "most players over 4200," we can see that GP Vegas has about doubled the previous record. By "most players over zero," the numbers are much closer:

The category of "most people at a trading card game event" restricts it to between Magic and pseudo-Magic. I'm more surprised that there was ever such a big YuGiOh tournament than that 4500 people is a record.

The GP Vegas square is 70% taller than the GP Charlotte square, but it's also 70% wider than the GP Charlotte square. So a 70% increase in GP size is illustrated by a 189% increase in square size, so this graphic is pretty much a lie.

Meaningless reference points:

There are 16,000 cities in the US with a lower population than the attendance of GP Vegas.

This tells us that 16,000 communities are called "cities" despite having less than 5,000 people. If I consider a rock to be a city of 0 people, then there are literally millions of U.S. cities with a smaller population than GP Vegas.

The registered VIPs would be the 175th largest GP ever run.

This is kind of impressive if you know that there have been, like, 400 GPs, so the hypothetical "GP of VIPs" would be in the top half. But we do not know this. The "175th-largest GP ever run" is not really a benchmark for anything.

The pile of cards opened at the tournament would stack 455 feet high, which is taller than the 30th-largest building in Las Vegas.

Stacking cards in a column (or lining them end-to-end down the highway) doesn't tell me how many cards there are. What would be meaningful is if they said they were "opening enough cards to fill all the shelves at the StarCityGames warehouse" or if they were opening enough cards to fill every room in my apartment with cards.

Also, comparing the stack to the 30th-tallest building Vegas is completely silly. They could say, instead, that the stack of cards would be taller than the venue they were playing in, or that the stack of cards would be taller than the Wizards of the Coast building in Washington.

10 countries represented in the judging staff.

Probably there are more countries represented at pro tours. What would be interesting is how many countries were represented by players in the tournament.

GP Vegas Stats that were actually interesting:

- 1 of every 9 players in GP Vegas was from outside the U.S.

- 241 of each mythic rare expected (including 16 foil Tarmogoyfs).

- 160 judges (enough to staff every PT + Players' Champs + WMC this year).

- All 4 of the Level 5 judges active this weekend (2 judging, 1 playing, 1 in Bangkok).

Most unreal GP Vegas stat (from reddit): The # of cards opened at this GP is ~1/2 the size of the Alpha print run. http://t.co/D0wKEhYUnN
— Ari Lax (@armlx) June 21, 2013

Also the photo gallery in the coverage has some nice birds-eye shots of the whole tournament (plus the great Kyle Ryc drinking from a licorice straw.)

Limited: Modern Masters combat tricks

Beware of 1W.

Common instants to expect in combat:

1W Otherworldly Journey
1W Test of Faith
4W Gleam of Resistance

1U Spellstutter Sprite
1U Echoing Truth
2U Erratic Mutation
2U Pestermite

B Peppersmoke
2B Drag Down
1BB Horobi's Whisper

R Brute Force
1R Glacial Ray
1R Crush Underfoot
1R Fury Charm
3R Torrent of Stone
5R Fiery Fall

1G Echoing Courage

The cards in italics mostly won't be in people's decks. There are "Giant Growths" in all three Naya colours (Test of Faith, Echoing Courage, Brute Force). There is also a bunch of red and black instant removal.

Horobi's Whisper and Torrent of Stone both have non-mana splice costs, so an opponent with U untapped can still just cast Reach Through Mists and splice to kill a creature.

Commons to not get killed by:
2W Blinding Beam

5WW Ivory Giant

2B Deepcavern Imp
6B Absorb Vis

3RR Thundering Giant

These ones aren't pump spells or removal, but they can still surprise-kill you. Two of them are white commons that will tap all your guys.

Common counterspells to not walk into:
1U Spellstutter Sprite
UU Logic Knot
3UU Traumatic Visions

I don't know if many people really play these counterspells, but two of them have another mode, at least (Spellstutter Sprite as a 1/1 flyer and Traumatic Visions to dig for land).

Rebels that your opponent might search for:
(in order of how much to fear them)
Bound in Silence
Rathi Trapper and Saltfield Recluse
Amrou Seekers and Avian Changeling
Blightspeaker
Deepcavern Imp
Amrou Scout
Mothdust Changeling

3 of the searchable commons can shut down an attacker, and another 3 of them have 2-power and evasion.

A specific common that forces you to always block Mothdust Changeling:
(2U) Latchkey Faerie

Watch out for Latchkey Faerie!

Nice Play: LSV Street Spasms a 2/2

From M3G2 of this draft, here's Luis Scott-Vargas using Street Spasm for X=2 to kill a Tavern Swindler:

It's not that tough to see the play in retrospect, but in the moment, I'd been picturing "tap three for Ember Beast." I think my plan would have involved dying with Street Spasm in hand.

(For what it's worth, Ember Beast was a bad draw in approximately all nine games of this draft. A random 2/2 for 3 would have been better.)

Writing: Willy Edel teaches us to sideboard

Edel with tapped Thundermaw Hellkite.

Hopefully you've already read and loved Willy Edel's new Domri Naya article on CFB. The great thing is how flexible he comes off about decklists; he sounds like he's always trying different versions and different sideboard configurations. He always wins with the deck, but he always adapts to a new optimal build.

Here are Edel's words of wisdom about sideboarding with Domri Naya (and the irrelevance of "sideboard guides"):

More important than a sideboard guide, you need to keep three things in mind when sideboarding:
1 – Don’t sideboard so much that your deck will lose its identity.
2 – Keep a smooth mana curve—taking out all 2-drops for 5-drops isn’t good.
3 – Know what game you want to play and sideboard accordingly. You want to end the game ASAP? Are you the control deck? You want to play a grindy game?

These are just fundamentals but people (including me) miss them all the time.